Talk:Hatzegopteryx

broken link
the link to the pterosaur database is broken. Kja er (talk) 21:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Removed (went to pdf format, but page was pretty much redundant with this article). J. Spencer (talk) 17:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Heads up
Mark Witton apparently did some work last Thursday that suggests Hatzegopteryx isn't as big as it's made out, and the old measurement is do to not noticing warping in the bone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.25.101.88 (talk) 14:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting! Will wait for Witton to publish on it though obviously before including that here. Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)


 * He has published :o).--MWAK (talk) 19:58, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Where? MMartyniuk (talk) 00:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Transylvania
Dracula is Romanian for "little Dragon"... now we know who the big dragon was.... ^ ^ --94.68.219.64 (talk) 13:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * "son of the Dragon" actually - per many linguist friends and sources on Vlad ..... 98.67.182.102 (talk) 22:27, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Why hasn't Quetzalcoatlus been properly described?
 * Good question! The institution seems to be sitting on the material and not letting outside parties examine it. MMartyniuk (talk) 13:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * No wonder all these pterosaur specimens have compression damage ;o).--MWAK (talk) 19:32, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Revised appearance
Mark Witton has recently published a paper that suggests Hatzegopteryx was actually considerably different in anatomy from Quetzalcoatlus northropi, most notably it was heavier and more robustly built than its western relative, should we update the article to reflect this new knowledge? --24.36.139.110 (talk) 00:25, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Read this on his blog but didn't know it had actually been published, what is the citation? MMartyniuk (talk) 11:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe it hasn't been published, I was just under the impression that it had. But if not, then maybe we should wait until it is. --24.36.139.110 (talk) 05:37, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * There is an abstract for SVPCA 2015 that suggest it was short-necked... FunkMonk (talk) 00:53, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Spinosaurus syndrome strikes again. Restoring all fragmentary species after well-known relatives may be the scientific, conservative thing to do, but doesn't make those restorations less likely to be completely wrong. People tend to get the impression that all species n an extinct "family" look pretty samey because of this. Also why it's probably better to refrain from using restorations of fragmentary species. Doing so gives a false impression of our knowledge of morphological diversity and can only make that diversity look lower than it really is. Dinoguy2 (talk) 08:29, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Cases like this makes me wonder, has there ever been a restoration of a fragmentarily known animal that turned out to be pretty accurate once more remains were found? FunkMonk (talk) 22:12, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Road to GA
A lot busier lately, but I'd really like to fix up this article. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 17:13, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Cool, and PeerJ means free images, which is always nice. By the way, I think this photo of a model was removed because it did not conform to the new, short-necked interpretation when it was first implied, but it doesn't really look much different from Witton's new restorations? FunkMonk (talk) 17:42, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 20:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Just putting down some TODOs for myself: add discussion of bending strength under paleobiology, reformat all citations. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 20:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Article is all text and no images near the middle.... contributions would be appreciated. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 01:57, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I was thinking this map could maybe be used? The Hatzegopteryx is of course outdated, but it should be easy to put the new silhouette in instead, or by just shortening the neck. And yeah, I now see that the neck on that model was too thin too, and the nostril should probably be at the front of the nares... FunkMonk (talk) 09:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've put down a map of Sebes (from the Eurazhdarcho description) for now, but the azhdarchid map would definitely be more attractive. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 17:20, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I've now replaced the old silhouette in the map with the new one. FunkMonk (talk) 13:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Much appreciated; replaced. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 23:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Mark Witton has a blog post with some circumstantial info, for example when the first specimens were announced, which is not mentioned here. Perhaps it could be sourced to one of the papers? If not, a blog post by a co-author of a relevant paper would be fine. Also, the intro here seems too short. FunkMonk (talk) 10:34, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Good points to both. I'll have to do some work on that. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 18:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

A few post-review comments
I've gone ahead and made a few minor modifications of my own:


 * Merge "Discovery and naming" and "Etymology". This seems to be pretty standard.


 * Specified that the "Teacup" azhdarchid is explicitly an azhdarchid. It's perhaps a bit repetitive, but I do not see an alternate way to phrase it that wouldn't make it more confusing.


 * Restructured lead slightly by merging the last two short paragraphs, and removing a few details that I don't think would be of particular interest to a non-technical audience (e.g. the Tisia-Dacia block).

One change that I'd like to get approval on before I do it is the moving of the "Discovery and naming" after the "Description". This seems to be quite inconsistent across various paleontology articles, but so far my two GAs have both had the "Description" first. I've tried to write the sections so that they don't rely on each other specifically. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 19:59, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * When I started writing dinosaur articles, all the prior featured dinosaur articles had the description section first, so I followed this. Pterosaurs aren't dinosaurs, but there are no featured pterosaur articles, and only one GA (Pteranodon, which has description first), so it would make sense to follow those precedents. FunkMonk (talk) 20:12, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I see. Well, sections moved. Lythronaxargestes (talk) 23:40, 13 February 2017 (UTC)