CollectA Guidraco

[Libraraptor]

I love that custom mended Guidraco. Primary for its own sake. But also because the silly original paint is hard to bear.

[stargatedalek]

That is a real stretch for me, and saying it as a rule, as if it is a known fact...is also a stretch.  If the proportions of these wings are correct, diving and swimming like a gannet sounds like romantic wishful thinking to me.  This morphology, just my opinion, screams buzzing the surface and plucking fish from the surface.

What part of this animal's build could possibly make it incapable of skimming?  This animal was made to skim...not like a skimmer per se...I agree the spoon would produce sudden drag.  But a dip and snatch...it could surely pull that off.

Did I say gannet? No, I said like a dolphin and I meant that very seriously. This wasn't a diving animal it was a swimming one. It landed, waded into the water and then dove under and foraged like a river dolphin.

Firstly we have Guidraco's crest, it points forwards at a gentle incline which indicates this animal was not diving at substantial speed into the water, it's also an aerodynamic nightmare to have a forward facing structure so this pterosaur probably didn't spend a great deal of it's time in flight (hardly abnormal actually). Secondly the lower (and upper) bill widen towards the front and narrow towards the back like a spoon, combined with the large outward facing teeth this is a structure seen in river dolphins today and indicates a similar feeding behavior. This also fits Guidraco's known habitat, large freshwater river systems. This is hardly a new or niche suggestion, it's widely accepted that Boreopteridae hunted in this way.

Skimming, and I don't even mean true skimming like Rhynchops, I mean so much as dipping ones lower beak into the water while moving at speed, requires very specific adaptations. This "dip and snatch" you speak of is borderline mythical even among modern birds. Eagles and osprey can pull it off using their talons, but that's the closest any flying animal has ever gotten to a "dip and snatch". Rhynchops bills are specially designed for what they do, they have to be hydrodynamic along the inside surface (Guidraco's spoon shaped lower beak and teeth make this impossible), they have to be very wide at the back of the jaw in order to create a surface that can actually hold the fish (something no pterosaur at all has) and the jaw itself has to be strengthened to withstand impact with the water at a speed fast enough to catch the fish. Just because some smaller pterosaurs would have been capable of flying at a speed slow enough relative to their size so as not to kill themselves while skimming doesn't mean they would actually manage to catch anything. Most pterosaur beaks weren't even hydrodynamic enough to scoop feed let alone skim.

Don't believe me yet? How about Witton?
http://markwitton-com.blogspot.ca/2013/07/rhamphomummies-and-zombie-skim-feeders.html
http://markwitton-com.blogspot.ca/2013/10/azhdarchid-pterosaurs-terrestrial.html

[pylraster]

Many of the collectA figures have silly and poorly-applied paint. However the sculpts are nice and you managed to make the Guidraco look like a much more believable creature. You did a splendid work on it!

[ceratopsian]

.....
I absolutely love this custom, I've been debating whether to modify my Guidraco for months and I've finally decided I will (after I finish these mountains of unfinished customs lying around).

It really does seem to be a model that lends itself perfectly to customisation.  The sculpt is so good beneath the rather basic factory paint scheme.