A new paper on Azhdarchid neck mechanics

[ITdactyl]

Hide your toddlers and medium sized dogs!  Apparently, they'd be fair game for Azhdarchids.

Seriously though, the paper below posits that the neck of an Azhdarchid with a 6m wingspan could have lifted prey items as heavy as 9-13kg (hence the pun about toddlers and smallish dogs).  It seems the only real limiter for prey selection is the size of the mouth and gullet.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221003060

Too bad the authors didn't hire an artist for a nice bit of paleoart to accompany the paper.  The funny thing is we probably think this is old knowledge due to the number of art available showing azhdarchids and kin tackling relatively large prey.  This is the first time though that the biomechanical analysis is done with consideration of the internal structure of the bones (thanks to an XCT scan of an Alanqa cervical vert).*

*The Naish and Witton paper of 2017 based the mechanical analysis on hollow tube models as proxy for the neck verts since data about the internal structure of the vertebrae weren't available then.

It looks like the CollectA Quetz model wasn't an over-exaggeration after all (though it'll probably still choke to death )

[austrosaurus]

It's interesting you bring up mouth/gullet dimensions as limiting the size of available prey. Has there been any study/speculation into whether some or all azhdarchids were capable of dismembering prey with their beaks?

[Halichoeres]

Cool, nice to see someone actually testing these hypotheses.

That reminds me of one of the times I've felt guiltiest for laughing. A wildlife photographer in Minnesota showed me a photo of an osprey, which was banked toward the camera such that you couldn't see its talons. But what you could see was a leash dangling behind it.

[ITdactyl]

A @austrosaurus , maybe there are new papers on the subject, just not accessible. The 2008 Witton & Naish paper explains that the mandibles were just for picking up prey - not dismembering.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0002271

...but their 2017 paper says that Hatzegopteryx (and other robust type azhdarchids) might be an exception to that.*
https://peerj.com/articles/2908/
*the paper doesn't have a biomechanical study of the jaws though

Alexander Averianov thinks azhdarchids were just giant pelicans (2013)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257843091_Reconstruction_of_the_neck_of_Azhdarcho_lancicollis_and_lifestyle_of_azhdarchids_Pterosauria_Azhdarchidae

We might get papers soon confirming that Hatzegopteryx was indeed dismembering the peaceful dwarves of Hateg island.

At least for now we know the necks were strong. Whether the jaws were as lethal as pop culture suggests will probably be confirmed/debunked by another paper.

[HD-man]

Hide your toddlers and medium sized dogs!  Apparently, they'd be fair game for Azhdarchids.

Seriously though, the paper below posits that the neck of an Azhdarchid with a 6m wingspan could have lifted prey items as heavy as 9-13kg (hence the pun about toddlers and smallish dogs).  It seems the only real limiter for prey selection is the size of the mouth and gullet.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221003060

Does that mean that the neck of an azhdarchid w/a 12m wingspan could've lifted prey items as heavy as 18-26kg? If so, then Bakker was right, "dactyl giants were so strong they could pick up an average-sized third-grade girl and fly away!": https://archive.org/details/dactylsdragonsof00robe/page/6/mode/2up

[ITdactyl]

Such a wild idea isn't it? I'm inclined to believe that's the line of thought this paper leads to - but I'm no expert, and I don't know how neck strength scales with wingspan/overall size.

Besides, the authors made the computations based on some nicely preserved Alanqa fossils.  I don't know if there are fossils from the giant forms that are as well preserved.

[Stegotyranno420]

the neck of an Azhdarchid with a 6m wingspan could have lifted prey items as heavy as 9-13kg (hence the pun about toddlers and smallish dogs).

Oh no
Thank goodness they are extinct
But I still think Azhdarchids are awesome, and my favorite group of pterosaurs