Thread by @TetZoo

#Azhdarchid Revolution -- starting in 2008, @MarkWitton and I published a series of papers instigating a paradigm shift on the spectacular azhdarchid #pterosaurs. New data supports our model and it continues to evolve. Most of our papers on this are #OA. Thread...

Our opening salvo was the 2008 @PLOSONE paper, which laid out the case for TERRESTRIAL STALKING as the primary way of life for these animals. At this point, our argument was that all #azhdarchids were - more or less! - alike in ecology and bauplan... journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

Fieldwork in Romania (led by the late Matyas Vremir, who died earlier this year) led to the 2015 discovery that some #azhdarchids were proportionally 'thick-necked' and, furthermore, that niche partitioning was present in some faunas... darrennaish.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/vremir…

Our initial 2008 proposal was challenged, so we presented new data which further supported the terrestrial stalking model AND which contested a competing 'scoop-netting' proposal. The relevant #OA paper was published 2015 in Acta Pal Pol... app.pan.pl/article/item/a… #pterosaurs

By c 2015 it had become obvious that some giant #azhdarchids - like Hatzegopteryx from Romania - were also 'thick necked'. This has major implications for behaviour and feeding behaviour. Our 2017 paper on this appeared in @thePeerJ .... peerj.com/articles/2908/

Some extra stuff... The idea that 2-3 #azhdarchid taxa might share a region and carve up the respective ecological niches was developed in a 2013 @PLOSONE paper by Vremir et al. @MarkWitton didn't get in on the authorship for political reasons but did help journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

The giant size of (some!) #azhdarchids has inevitably led to suggestions that they were flightless. But this is not consistent with numerous flight adaptations seen across their skeletons. @MarkWitton & @aeroevo explained this in a 2010 @PLOSONE paper: journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…