 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Science: Ancient pterosaurs 'could have outperformed modern birds'">Archive of stories pre April 2007 | | | | | | | 
Archive of stories pre April 2007 | News submitted by: MIB
Scientists say ancient pterosaurs may have had a "fly-by-wire" system that enabled them to outperform modern birds in the air.
The flying reptiles, which lived at the time of the dinosaurs, had brains equipped to gather large amounts of sensory information from their wings. This may have helped them build up detailed maps of aerodynamic forces and body orientation, providing excellent flight control, scientists believe.
In the same way, the most advanced fighter planes depend on electronic signals and computers to stay in the air.
The research also showed that pterosaurs had huge inner-ear canals, used to maintain balance and equilibrium.
They were twice the size of those of living birds, which themselves have much larger inner-ear canals than mammals. Enlarged balance organs would have added to the pterosaur's aerobatic agility.
The US scientists, led by Dr Lawrence Witmer from Ohio University in Athens, carried out X-ray scans of the almost intact skulls of two pterosaurs.
They used the computerised tomography (CT) images to reconstruct three-dimensional models of the animals' brains.
One pterosaur, Rhamphorhynchus, was a small species with a three-foot wingspan and four-inch skull that lived 150 million years ago in what is now Germany. The other, Anhanguera, which lived 115 million years ago, was a much larger creature from Brazil with a 14-foot wingspan and a 20-inch skull. Its head hung sharply downward, probably to help it spot fish from the air.
Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers said the most striking finding in both animals was the unusual size of the flocculus - a region at the back of the brain connected with movement and balance. It occupied 7.5% of the total brain mass of the pterosaurs, compared with about 2% or less in birds.
The flocculus would have processed information from the creatures' skin-covered wings, which were full of sensitive muscle fibres.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_833512.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery
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