New Dinosaur

Well now we have an interesting new discovery of a gigantic flying dinosaur. Previously Petrosaurs were highly disputed as flying animals because of the difficulty of the physiology of flight as we understand it today. However the overwhelming fossile evidence that indicated not just that the animal flew but flew easily has largely confounded experts in modern bird physiology.

To make a long discussion short the issue is material strength and metabolisim. Bird wings are extrodinarily fragile constructs. Anyone that has ever held a flight bird in their hand knows just how in substantial they are and how easy it is to break them. Now imagine such a structure that stretched some 8-9 meters to a side and then flap it hard enough to lift the weight of a bird with a 18 meter wing span. Experts were puzzled before by earlier examples of the capable flyers that petroasaurs evidently were and they have all be considerably smaller than this monster that they just found. The argument in short is that bones can not be both strong enough and light enough for what would be needed to support a bird flapping such large wings. And when you start with that problem to begin with it dosn't get any easier as you add strength.. because to do that you need stronger bones which means heavier bones which mean more force must be generated.

I have no doubt that in the years to come there will be some argument about the flying ability of this new find very similar in vein to the old petrosarus debate. But the evidence in support here seems to be of a similar nature so the question is more HOW did it fly than that it did or did not. and it truly is a puzzle. If you have never encountered the size issue debate of dinosaurs from the understanding of modern biology it is a fascinating discussion. Moden biologists have major problems with the giant sizes of some dinosaurs. Discussions about the sauropod neck are endless as are discussions about the athletic capacity of T-Rex. All evidence seems to point to animals that were highly active, but modern biologists often insist it is impossible. That the shear size presents problems.

For example if you take the largest herbivore and largest carnivore of today. The Elephant and the Bear respectively. Both are fairly lethargic. The bear in fact is actually omnivourous and in fact derrives much of its diet from non meat sources. The elephant bears the distinction of being the only mammal that cannot jump. Taking what we know of modern elephant physiology modern biologist simply have no answer for how a T-Rex, which was larger than an elephant, Could not only carry all of its weight on Two legs, but actually perform the highly agile manouevers needed for a carnivore to catch its prey. This difficulty is the single largest reason why early on most people assumed dinosaurs were lumbering extremely slow beasts that simply lived in slow motion. That they were cold blooded and that the reason T-Rex could be a carnivore was that it could be that slow and still catch food. Then the evidence began mounting strongly in favor of warm blooded creaters with high metabolisims that had activity rates much more in common with that of birds than chilled reptiles. IE they were fast and quick AND huge. This is still a thorny subject to modern biologists because to their eyes it is completely impossible that this combination could ever exist.

The problem of the strength of the petrasuarus wings is the same for T-Rex's legs and the Sauropods Neck. Muscles couldn't be strong enough, Bone couldn't be strong enough and even if either were the shear amount of energy that would have to be processed to put them to use would have had them needing to eat non-stop for 30 hours a day (IE not enough time to do anything else and still not enough time). All in all its is a fascinating discussion at the edge of science where what we know about the past and what we know about the present clash.