Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #azhdarchids
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Welcome to a somewhat overdue (mega)thread devoted to the @AppleTV / @bbcstudios series #PrehistoricPlanet season 2 (#prehistoricplanet2 if you will), streaming NOW, and specifically to the first episode: ISLANDS... 
Islands is one of my favourite episodes of #PrehistoricPlanet2. We knew early on that we’d cover stories relevant to the Late Cretaceous island faunas of Romania and Madagascar (since both places have revealed numerous amazing Late Cretaceous island-dwelling animals), but…
... what else could we show? The producer for this episode – Paul Stewart – worked really hard to find appropriate stories, and succeeded in focusing on amazing animals doing interesting things…
Welcome to the 5th and final of my #PrehistoricPlanet threads in which I talk about the science and background to what we showed in this new @AppleTVPlus @bbcstudios production. This time we look at EP 5: FORESTS… #dinosaurs #Cretaceous
I was lead scientific consultant on #PrehistoricPlanet and was extensively involved in our many decisions, all of which were science-led or scientifically informed. I was, of course, merely one among many in a HUGE team that involved hundreds of very talented people!
Ep 5 focuses on the #dinosaurs and #pterosaurs that lived in forests during the Maastrichtian (the final part of the Late #Cretaceous). The Maastrichtian world was heavily forested, with temperate, subtropical & tropical woodland covering around 78% of the land surface…
Ok, here we go on a thread relating to the science and decisions behind ep 3 (FRESHWATER) of #PrehistoricPlanet , our new @AppleTVPlus @bbcstudios series devoted to Late #Cretaceous life. Here we go... #dinosaurs #pterosaurs #plesiosaurs #frogs
Freshwater kicks off in north-east Asia (a location consistent with the geology, climate and animals we show) with a spectacular waterfall connected to canyons. Juvenile #pterosaurs - they're young #azhdarchids - have gathered here to roost... #PrehistoricPlanet
We know essentially nothing of the roosting or resting habits of #azhdarchids but see it as likely that they would have gathered in numbers (fossil evidence does show that they were social) in places that predators couldn't easily get to. Hat-tip to discussion with @MarkWitton ..
Join me in this thread as I talk about the science and decisions behind what we show in ep 2 - DESERTS - of the new @AppleTVPlus @bbcstudios series #PrehistoricPlanet . Deserts aired on Tuesday, but better late than never. Here we go...
Deserts kicks off in western South America on an arid plain where a mass gathering of the giant #titanosaur #Dreadnoughtus have gathered to display and compete for mates. Dreadnoughtus, from Argentina, was named in 2014 by @kenlacovara [shown in photo!] and colleagues...
The idea that sauropods might have gathered and competed is based on behaviour seen in modern birds, mammals and other animals. Remember that events like this MUST have happened in the past, as they do today...
OK, hello and let's go as I #livetweet during a watch of ep 1 of #PrehistoricPlanet! I'll try and keep everything in the same thread. This is the COASTS ep - 1 of 5 - that will be streaming one a day on @AppleTVPlus ... Here we go!
Like all eps, Coasts was years in preparation and a huge team are behind its completion. I'll mostly be tweeting about science and not ppl but I will be mentioning some key individuals... #PrehistoricPlanet
The ep starts with a swimming #Trex. T. rex lived north to South east to west, across Laramidia (western N America) and was in near-coast environments in many places. Plus ... like just about ALL animals.. it was surely a great swimmer. We WANTED to show something new, and...
#Azhdarchids, a brief thread concentrating on my involvement with this amazing group of #pterosaurs. Azhdarchids have to be regarded as the most distinctive and unusual of pterosaur groups, and views on how they might have lived have varied considerably... (images by @MarkWitton)
In 2008, @MarkWitton and I examined the skeletal proportions, cranial anatomy and sedimentological setting of #azhdarchids and concluded that they were strongly adapted for quadrupedal walking in terrestrial settings....
They were likely striding predators of small and mid-sized prey, analogous to ground hornbills. We termed this the ‘terrestrial stalking’ model. See our #OA @PLOSONE paper A Reappraisal of Azhdarchid Pterosaur Functional Morphology and Paleoecology journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… cont...
#Azhdarchid Revolution -- starting in 2008, @MarkWitton and I published a series of papers instigating a paradigm shift on the spectacular azhdarchid #pterosaurs. New data supports our model and it continues to evolve. Most of our papers on this are #OA. Thread...
Our opening salvo was the 2008 @PLOSONE paper, which laid out the case for TERRESTRIAL STALKING as the primary way of life for these animals. At this point, our argument was that all #azhdarchids were - more or less! - alike in ecology and bauplan... journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
Fieldwork in Romania (led by the late Matyas Vremir, who died earlier this year) led to the 2015 discovery that some #azhdarchids were proportionally 'thick-necked' and, furthermore, that niche partitioning was present in some faunas... darrennaish.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/vremir…
