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There are plenty of birds that travel between southern Africa and Europe every year. Sure, they take breaks unlike the Pterosaur would've, but still, it's not t
by skrebbel 8y ago
There are plenty of birds that travel between southern Africa and Europe every year. Sure, they take breaks unlike the Pterosaur would've, but still, it's not that special.
- mcv 8y agoThey're not as big as a flying giraffe with a gigantic beak, though.
- prawn 8y agoThere was a stork that migrated to Europe with an African spear lodged through it. That's something. Actually, many of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfeilstorch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfeilstorch
- setr 8y ago..and this was how we learned about migration? That’s such an absurd way to discover it
- njarboe 8y agoSeems very reasonable to me. Here are some other theories at the time from the wiki article about where birds came from: "Some theories of the time held that they turned into mice, or hibernated at the bottom of the sea during the winter, and such theories were even propagated by zoologists of the time."
- Someone 8y agoThis was accidental, but I think tagging individual birds to make them identifiable by humans is still the primary way we learn about migration. The alternative of continuously tracking individual birds wasn’t possible until late 20th century and I think still is fairly expensive.
- setr 8y agoSure, it's just a comical predecessor to tagging
- mccalljt 8y agoThere was a very interesting In Our Time podcast on this if you are interested in how our knowledge of bird migration evolved - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wmk5j https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08wmk5j
- prawn 8y agoYes, that's where I first heard of it. It's a great podcast and worth recommending!
- 2038AD 8y ago>first and most famous Pfeilstorch was a white stork found in 1822 >Before migration was understood, people had no other explanation for the sudden annual disappearance of birds like the white stork and barn swallow. Some theories of the time held that they turned into mice 1822 seems far too late
- skrebbel 8y agoObviously, but GP mentioned that they found the feat of flying across the world particularly impressive/scary, so I thought they might not be aware that super many birds do that today and it's awesome and amazing :-)
- andrewflnr 8y agoThe wording suggested to me that the pterosaurs in question could do it without stopping, though I probably misinterpreted it. But it's really the combination of that with the "giraffe-sized monster with a beak" angle mentioned by mcv.
- ncmncm 8y agoNo, they really could fly thousands of miles without stopping. They may have stopped to sleep, but there are plenty of birds that don't.