Tiny Pterosaurs Dominated Cretaceous Niches | 7 Days of Science

We're back! This week's 7 Days of Science once again contains a veritable assortment of science news, from the Orion space capsule arriving at NASA's VAB, to some fascinating pterosaur news and even a story about a new proboscidean! Also we have terrible audio this week. From Doug at least.

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Sources:
Orion:

UK Net Zero plans:

Baby pterosaurs from Morocco:

New proboscidean:

Pterosaur flight paper:

[hastar]

Nice to hear they've found Doug a bigger box to store him in.

[bendykirby]

Juvenile large pterosaurs filling the small flying niches could explain the absence of generally smaller pterosaur species at the time, since the babies could’ve outcompeted the small species in those niches. Could just be preservation bias though.

[JoesWebPresence]

Wow! the new CGI Doug is awesome! Much better than that cardboard cutout! The robot voice is a dead giveaway though.

[noelhutchins]

If you bring a bunch of fabric or bedding into that room with you, the sound quality will vastly improve; for instance, hang towels from the corners of the ceiling to dampen acoustic-echoes: roll mover's pads out near the walls to absorb stray sound-waves and improve your recording quality, acoustic baffles are neat but carpet works too. You can even nestle pillows around your mic allowing sound only from your direction.

[WaterShowsProd]

I hope they can rescue Doug from that well before it fills with rain water.

[dinomation]

Interesting how younger pterosaurs filled in the niche previously held by the older ancestors.

[kailawkamo]

Woah. The juvenile large pterosaurs filling the niche of medium and small pterosaurs parallels with juvenile tyrannosaurids filling the niche of medium sized theropods. Young animals that switch niches during their development really do tend to organize communities this way, don't they?

[madderhat]

It's a shame pterosaurs didn't make it through the extinction event to fly today.

[Lyze]

That drawing of the bird, bat and pterosaur, the finest MS-Paint work known to science.

[thedoruk]

Adorable Pterosaurs everywhere? That is absolutely Perfect!

[flightlesslord]

I wonder if biodiversity was dropping at the end of the Cretaceous because so many species became super adaptable with their ontogony, so one species could occupy multiple niches.

[raphlvlogs]

the 3 flying animals at the end looked comically cute.

[thhseeking]

Bloody hell, guys, Doug DID apologise for the sound quality! No need to keep pointing it out.

[JoeEmber]

Dang, I'm gonna miss the cardboard cutout bit

[dinomation]

Nice to see new elephant history advances this week.

[solanceDarkMOW]

It sounds like Doug is recording in a shipping container. So, do we think that Doug is being forced to do this by his captors? If so, is it because they don't want anyone to think something's wrong, or just because they're fans?

[shanerooney]

"Thanks for enjoying _Seven Days of Science._ And as * *Cuts to Intro music* *

[dnf]

4:11 I wish I could cite a source, but the best one I ever saw was in an article about miniature mammoths from the late 90's. The author drew a stick figure with a square head next to a mammoth to show scale

[MammothChats]

Guess who’s back? Back again? Douge is back, tell a friend.




DEFINITELY NOT AN ARG ON THIS CHANNEL

[tinamclaughlin]

New word on many pterasaurs previously, is powerful and pleasing! 🙂🥰😊😍