Live Pterosaurs and Science

Skeptics have often suggested two explanations for sightings of pterosaurs: hoaxes and misidentifications. Let’s use scientific reasoning by examining the most recent results of data compilations and analysis, for information obtained from eyewitnesses, in particular regarding the possibility of major hoax involvement.

Wingspan Data

After the addition of data from the many 2012 reports, we have 74 sightings in which wingspan estimates were made numerically. For example, in Hawaii an eyewitness reported “Between 3-4 foot wing span, sharp, long beak, featherless wings more like a bat than a bird.” The wingspan estimate was entered into the database as “3.5” for that sighting in 2008 (reported to me in 2012).

Statistical analysis gives us the following (wingspans in feet):

Minimum: 1.3

First Quartile: 6

Median: 11.5

Third Quartile: 20.5

Maximum: 46

Mean 14.472

SD 10.200

SEM 1.186

N 74

90% CI 12.496 to 16.447

95% CI 12.109 to 16.835

99% CI 11.336 to 17.608

There is no outlier.

I believe the data is similar to the data gathered and analyzed for wingspan estimates one year ago, but I am open to comments from anyone who is qualified in statistical analysis.

Most of us prefer to see a graph of the data, so consider this:

What can we conclude from the evenness of the data on wingspan estimates? No significant number of hoaxes were involved, for expectations regarding pterosaur size would have made one or two peaks; there is no significant peak anywhere that would suggest such a thing. Let’s consider two peaks that would come from a number of hoaxes.

Hoax With Bias Towards Huge Pterosaurs

This would be the most likely result of hoaxes, in my opinion. Hoaxers would probably be influenced by film and television fiction, for example the Jurassic Park movies. If many hoaxers were involved, it would create, in the wingspan graph, either a broad peak or a very high peak, somewhere over twelve feet. This is obviously lacking in the actual graph above.

Hoax With Bias Towards Rhamphorhynchoid-Fossil Size

This needs to be taken in context: Many sightings of apparent pterosaurs include the observation of a long tail. Many of those, in turn, include the observation of a vane or flange at the end of the tail, in other words, a tail like that of a Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaur. Hoaxers who were attempting to convey precisely-orchestrated lies would give wingspan estimates in keeping with the fossils of that kind of pterosaur, fossils of small pterosaurs, generally less than eight feet in wingspan. If such hoaxes played a major part in the sighting reports, we would see a peak in the graph, somewhere below eight feet or so. That differs greatly from what we see in the graph above.

But what if the construction of the above graph might hide critical information? Let’s look at another graph, made with feet designations by multiples of four feet rather than three:

At the 24-foot mark, the apparent small valley in the first graph becomes a small peak in the second graph. This means that the actual data in this area is rather even. To be precise, here is that portion of the actual data (feet of wingspan): 20, 20, 20, 20, 20.5, 21, 21.5, 22, 24, 25, 25, 25, 25, 27, 29, 30, 30.

Notice the peak in the lower range; this appears to be a genuine peak. But it involves wingspans too large to have come from hoaxers who were influenced by the sizes of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. To be precise: 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.5, 11, 11, 12, 12, 12.5, 13, 13, 13, 13. Those are far too many estimates over seven feet, were such hoaxers to have become involved.

Why so few Giant Pterosaurs?

So why do both graphs show a steady decline in numbers of sightings, as the wingspan increases into the larger-than-birds range? I suggest that in at least one or two species the creatures continue to grow as they get older. The creatures die off for various reasons, leaving fewer and fewer larger ones to continue to grow. Only a very few modern pterosaurs reach a wingspan over thirty feet, but when one of those giant nocturnal pterosaurs has a reason to fly in daylight, it can hardly avoid being observed by a human, within a few hundred yards, who glances in that direction.

I realize that all this analysis and reasoning hardly compares with darting a modern pterosaur and examining the sleeping creature up close, but for now we need to do the best we can do, with what we have, and we have a lot of data.

.

Scientific Evidence for Modern Pterosaurs

. . . many Americans think of “pterodactyls” as large or gigantic, similar to what we have seen in movies. That would cause a disproportional number of reports to include wingspans over fifteen feet, even greater than twenty-five feet, if many hoaxes were involved. But there is no such preponderance in the data.

No Feathers on Pterosaurs

A hoaxer would have no reason to show doubt about the lack of feathers, for that would be essential to convince somebody that a pterosaur had been observed . . .

Scientific Paper by Jonathan Whitcomb

David Woetzel of New Hampshore and Jonathan Whitcomb of California may be the only writers who have published, in a peer-reviewed journal, scientific papers supporting the idea of modern living pterosaurs [Creation Research Society Quarterly].