For a show about prehistoric life Surviving Earth sure has few pterosaurs. Only two to be exact, so this should be brief.

The “ptorotopterosaur”

This isn’t an actual species but a speculative missing link between lagerpetids and pterosaurs. It is portrayed as a glider (a minor pet peeve of mine, as flight probably didn’t evolve from gliding) but whatever. It is portrayed as gliding down to the beaches to feed on marine reptile eggs and young, which is a step up from depictions of “protopterosaurs” or other “proto-flyers” hunting after aerial insects, which would be too agile for mere gliders.

The Pteranodon

Oh sorry, the “Pteranodin” as it is pronounced. It is fairly accurate, down to giving it hyper-retracted wing membranes like the pterosaurs in Prehistoric World. It feeds by diving underwater after prey as inferred by its anatomy and diet; it swims using the hindlimbs only, of which there is actual evidence in ctenochasmatoid pterosaurs but doubtful in the small-hindlimbed pteranodontids. The way it launches from the water is also unnatural, and ultimately serves as shark fodder.

Concluding remarks.

I feel disappointed there are no more pterosaurs. For those there are they lean on the speculative, but are otherwise pretty reasonable.

Ctenochasma by @theenatiornithebandwagon. Originally going to be it floating in water beside a duck, but they started school and I didn’t want to waste this.

In literature, ctenochasmatoid pterosaurs are often compared to shorebirds. However, I think a much more fitting analogue are ducks for a variety of reasons:

They have proportionally long torsos and large hindfeet, suggesting they were adapted to floating and swimming. Swim tracks attributed to ctenochasmatoids are known (Witton 2013)

Many taxa are filter feeders just like ducks, and those that aren’t are still specialised in eating aquatic invertebrates (Bestwick 2020)

Pterodaustro has been compared to nocturnal waterfowl (Hall 2011)

Some taxa like Pterodaustro might have had some difficulty launching, as the aofrementioned long torso might have been incovenient, and may have only taken off out in wide open spaces (Witton 2013).

What do you think?

References

Witton, Mark P. (2013). Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691150613.

 Bestwick, J., Unwin, D.M., Butler, R.J. et al. Dietary diversity and evolution of the earliest flying vertebrates revealed by dental microwear texture analysis. Nat Commun 11, 5293 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19022-2

A recent study has examined the known pterosaur trackways and has found previously unseen diversity and alignment with three major clades: Ctenochasmatoidea, Dsungaripteridae and Neoazhdarchia. This is consistent with these pterosaurs being among the most terrestrial of their kind, and neatly showcases these clades’ evolutionary history across time (though with caveats like the parcity of the fossil reccord across some eras).

A few negative notes:

This study still seems to ignore the non-pterodactyloid trackways, which I addressed previously.

They seem to ignore the Late Cretaceous dsungaripteroid trackways.