Well the 2010 Beijing pterosaur meeting is at an end, though many of the participants are still in and around Beijing soaking up local culture, food and pterosaur specimens. I’m back in the office preparing for my big move this week (proper Musings announcement to come, but I’m leaving Beijing in a week) and doing some more UV stuff with Helmut Tischlinger. The Musings will be quiet for yet another week or so then I’m afraid, but with much to come from Flugsaurier, field work in Xinjiang and various recent museum visits plus hopefully a couple more guest posts and interviews.
Visiting a display quarry in Liaoning.
Meantime, here are some brief highlights and photos from the event. First off, all the abstracts are currently available here (at least for now, titles are in Chinese unfortunately) with various new taxa, revisions and redescriptions and lots on flight. Perhaps surprisingly for a clade of flying organisms, there’s not been too much on this before and I think the issues of flight (take off, landing, soaring, flight profiles etc.) were perhaps the central theme of the meeting, or at least they were for me.
Fossil trees with a fake volcano for that proper Mesozoic look.
As ever, in addition to talks and posters there were specimens to see, a fieldtrip taking in localities and museums and the rest. Pterosaur research is a global event, but that also means that with so few researchers, we are scattered around the planet and despite events like SVP, Flugsaurier really does bring us together. Thus it was also a chance to catch up with many friends and colleagues whom I have not seen for many a long year and to meet new people entering the field as well as dealing with, and discussing, the actual science.
Mark Witton in the Yixian
Oh yes, and next time out will be Flugsaurier 2013 in Rio courtesy of Alex Kellner and colleagues – see you in Brazil. They are cleary on a good run with the World Cup and the Olympics and now this! Well done Brazil.
Steve Vidovic with a fossil plant he found.
Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings 
The abstract pdf links on the Acta Geoscientica Sinica page dont work.
ooh, never mind I think I was clicking the wrong link.
Well that was easily solved. 🙂
Hello
Dear David Hone!
I drew a new sketch about Dimorphodon. If you like to see my work, I will send you free. I really like to know opinion of an aware person about my Dimorphodon. unfortunately, I never have a success in contact with specialists from England. for example, your last Email and Emails of Dr. Mark Witton were agressive (specially for my scientific questions about Pterosaurs) and I never find the reason. I am not English, is that the reason?
about me:
I am 25 years old. I am an Iranian biologist. I have a Bachelor of science degree in “General biology” field and Master of science degree in “Biology-Genetics” field in same university (Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch). name of my thesis for Master of science degree was ” Evaluation of Thrombosis Factors (PAI-1, FII, FVL, MTHFR) effects on Recurrent Miscarriage by RFLP- PCR Method. after success in this project, my Advisor professor make an special part (but cheap) in army hospital (according to my Thesis) for molecular recognize this problem for first time in IRAN.
Hi Amin,
I did not think my mails were aggressive and I certainly did not intend to be. My apologies if I upset you.
However, your mails were a bit rude. We do try to help people out in their work and interest in dinosaurs but you must understand they we are very busy. I write my blog in my spare time, for fun, and do this kind of work in the same way. It is not necessarily easy for me to just give up hours of time for free to help people who ask. When you write in your mails that you are a better artist than other professionals and that you will be a better researcher it does not look good.
Ambition is one thing, arrogance another.
For me personally, I only ever got one e-mail asking for help and (as I remember) I told you I was busy. I cannot just answer every question every person has about palaeontology and pterosaurs. For a start there is lots of good information on the web (like Pterosaur.net, started for this very reason) and good books available, whole groups that discuss palaeo art and websites devoted to answering questions. I don’t want to discourage people but I can’t do everything which is why I go to the trouble of setting u services like P.net and Ask A Biologist.
If you want help, ask and be polite. But don’t bombard people with demands to help and get annoyed when they don’t, ask nicely and hope.