Stuff You Should Know - Selects: Pterosaurs: Not Flying Dinosaurs

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

Almost everything you know about pterosaurs is wrong. They weren't birds, they weren't flying dinosaurs and they weren't all pterodactyls. Which makes this classic episode a great one for you to learn some new and amazing stuff about terrifying prehistoric beasts! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know

on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. Hi, Jennifer Lopez here with the new season of My Overcomfer Podcast. What's overcomfer all about? It's about inspiring confidence in all of us and choosing calling over comfort. Every Tuesday I'll be having real and honest conversations. You'll hear it from me first before any cheeseman hits your social media feed. Join me as I create

a space where opening up is not only okay, it's encouraged. Listen to over-comfort podcasts with Jenna Colopas on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everyone it's Josh and for this week's Select I've chosen our 2016 episode on Tarasars. Not flying dinosaurs, Tarasars, they were their own thing and this episode brings out the inner child paleontologists of me. I hope it does for you too. There's only one way to find out, sit back, relax and enjoy the episode. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.

It's just the two of us batching it today. Yeah. That's what my dad used to say if he had to take care of me while my mom was working. We're just batching it. Was that what he said? Yeah. I thought that was a relatively new term. No. I mean at least the early 80s. All right. Maybe my dad was like way ahead of his time. Why isn't there been a movie called Batchin' It? I don't know, that's actually. Pretty obvious.

The fact that it was around as a word in the 80s makes me even more surprised that there's not a movie called Batchin' It. They're like, the protagonist has to put on like a car wash to save their business or something like that. Yeah, Owen Wilson. What did he do? Well, he would just be the star of Batchin' it.

I imagine, right? I guess so. Could that guy be any more charming than he is? He's pretty charming. Speaking of charming Chuck, let me introduce you to a wonderful little beast named Ketzel Coladas, Northropi. Are you familiar?

Sure. So Ketzel Koladas is named after the Aztec flying serpent god, Ketzel Kolados. Yes. So it makes sense. But this guy was a real thing. Not to put down the Aztecs beliefs or anything like that. But this is a verifiable beast at one point, particularly in the late Cretaceous period. And it's what you would probably call a teradactyl.

But if you call it a teradactyl, you'd be dead wrong, pal. What it really is is a terasaur. And there's a lot of misunderstandings that we're going to sort through. But the most important point is that this beast right here is 20 feet tall, this tall is a giraffe and it had a wingspan akin to about an F-16 fighter jet and it was a bad mammajama. How's that for a lead-in? That's good. I like it. I didn't even use the wayback machine.

Just trim the fat. Gone. Oh, you don't even need that old clunky thing anymore? We just used our imaginations. We're not actually in the Cretaceous period like we would be if we had used the wayback machine. Okay. Yeah, these Tara are starts with the P, of course,

the Silent P. Mm-hmm. That is from Greek, meaning winged lizards, and that's pretty on point, because they were reptiles. They were not dinosaurs. Yes, big, big distinction here. They're close, it's like a sister to a dinosaur, perhaps.

They're from the same cloday, which is archcasores, but it's a really wide cloday. And all that means is that they have, in the very remote past, some single common ancestor with dinosaurs. Yeah, and they were, they were around roughly the same time period, and went away in the same fashion. So it's normal, I think, for people to say, look at that tarot act, they'll look at that flying dinosaur, even though neither one of those is necessarily correct. Yeah, so just to get this across one more time,

tarot sores were not flying dinosaurs. They were flying reptiles, but they weren't dinosaurs. They weren't birds either, and to confuse things even further, there were birds around at the time of the dinosaurs and the time of the Terrasaurus, and to confuse things even further, there were such things as actual flying dinosaurs. We call them velociraptors. Right, and these vertebrates actually were flying long before birds and bats by like millions and millions of years.

Yeah, I think this has to forks article. This is a good one. I got to give big ups to Clint Pumphrey. Yeah, pretty good. The Pumphrey. Yeah, it sounds like an action house to forks writer. Clint Pumphrey. Just be frock.

But he said, I think 80 million years difference, 80 million years before. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of years. It is. So there's a lot of like confusing stuff flying around. And I think there's one other thing we should probably address right out of the gate is that you shouldn't call them teradactyls, even though a lot of people do. Teradactyls are actually a specific genus of terasaurus.

So to call all terasaurus teradactyls would be incorrect, but you could call all teradactyls terasaurus, okay? Yeah, and technically, like, if you have seen this thing in movies a lot that they say, that's a tarot actal. What you've probably been looking at this whole time is one of the species. And they're, you know, potentially up to 200 of these species. Right now, I think they've identified about 130-ish, but a Tara No-Done. Is that how you say it? I, you do it.

I do it. You do it. That's what I would come with. I like Tara No-Done. Right. That's probably what you've been seeing in movies all this time that you've been saying that's a Tara Dacto. Like if you look up an image search of the Taranodon,

you'll say that's a tarot dactyl because I saw it in King Kong. Yeah, it's like this giant wing beast with kind of short stubby legs and a huge wing span and like a weird crest on its head and a long pointy beak. A tarot dactyl, everybody knows what a tarot dactyl is, don't be an idiot. Yeah, you saw it in King Kong in 1933.

So the same thing in Jurassic Park 3 in 2001, right? Things hadn't changed all that much, but in that time span, it's actually kind of surprising because our understanding of tarot sars had increased dramatically, and yet we were still just basically thinking of them exclusively as tarot actuals, which isn't the case. Yeah, there was a paleontologist named O.C. Marsh, who was a pretty good name for a paleontologist.

Sure. He collected these first fossils and what is now and was then Western Kansas in the late 1800s, like 1870. And they've been, well, I was about to say they've been digging up lots of these since then they sort of have, but not nearly as many as other types of fossils because these fossils are really highly breakable and dissolvable and they're tough to get a

hold of and keep in one piece throughout the process. Yeah, we should we should talk about that. Like one of the reasons there is so little understanding of tarisars is because they don't fossilize very well. Because their bones were not designed to be fossilized, they were designed to allow these giant reptiles to fly. Yeah, they didn't say, oh, we need to be designed to leave our mark later. No, it's like we want to fly.

Right, exactly. So early on, I think the first teradon, or the first terrasaur specimen was found in the late 18th century in Germany. And by the time OC Mars was digging them up 100 years later in Kansas, they'd been discovered but they'd also just kind of been abandoned because there were very few follow-up fossils that were identified, right? When O.C. marsh started to dig them up, this was a big deal.

Because he was finding virtually all of the same species, the tyrannodon, that became the common conception of what the tarisar is. But it was coupled with an earlier name, taradactyl, that had been given to the entire species or the entire group by Georges Cuvier, and I think 1812. Yeah, and that first fossil you were talking about, no one knows, no one got credit for that for digging that thing up. But like you said, it was in Germany,

in a limestone, like 150 million year old limestone, late in the 18th century, that eventually found its way to a man with a great name. Cosimo Alessandro Collini. That's a great one. Man, when I first came across this in the Zara, Col, I was like, I'm looking forward to hearing Chuck say that guy's name.

That's him. He was Italian, go'm looking forward to hearing Chuck say that guy's name. That's him. He was Italian, go figure, and he was a natural scientist. He, like many others, to follow for a long time didn't really know what it was. Since they found that in an ancient lagoon with all kinds of seafaring creatures, he understandably thought it was a seafaring creature. Yeah. And some of the best preserved fossils that we have of these things are found in things like lagoon, where something happened to them, they died suddenly, quickly fell into a body of water, which probably broke their fall a little bit. They landed at the muck, then were covered up potentially in some anaerobic, in an anaerobic state, and eventually became fossilized very gently.

That's what it takes to fossilize a tarot sower. Yeah, and Kuviae, who kind of got it all wrong by calling it a tarot d'actyl for everyone in the future, he was actually the same dude though who did say, actually I think those are wings not paddles. Right. And that was, you know, a big breakthrough. Yeah and the reason he called them tarot actles, it means wing finger in the Greek. Right? So tarasar means winged lizard and tarot actle means wing finger because as we'll see the front edge of the wing, the front edge of the wing, the leading edge of the wing, is actually an extraordinarily long pinky.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I think so too. That's a good way to lead up to a break, too, don't you think? Agreed. Let's go. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the US government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think?

Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. We spent a decade applying critical thinking to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies.

You've heard about these things, but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up fam? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Vaker, and host of the new podcast, Flaky Biscuit.

On this podcast, I'm gonna get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to mom's Thanksgiving Jurassic. Sometimes I might get it wrong, sometimes I'll get it right. I'm so happy it's good because man, if it wasn't, I'd be like, you know, everybody not my mom. Either way, we will have a blast. You'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me

as I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success. And these nostalgic meals, fam, they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh. Does this podcast come with a therapist? Ha ha ha.

They can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the OverCumver podcast with Jenna Calopese. Yep, that's me. You may know my late mom, Jenny Rivera, my queen. She's been my guiding light as I bring you a new season of Overcomfort podcast.

This season, I'll continue to discover and encourage you and me to get out of our comfort zones and choose our calling. Join me as I dive into conversations that will inspire you, challenge you, and bring you healing. We're on this journey together. I'm opening up about my life and telling my story in my own words. Yes, you'll hear it from me first

before the Cheezman lands on your social media food. If you thought you knew everything, guess again. So I took another test with ancestry and it told me a lot about who I am and it led me to my biological father and everyone here, my friends laugh but I'm Puerto Rican! Listen to the Overcome for Podcast with Jenna Calopas as part of my Cuduran Podcast Network available on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Well, now when you're on the road, driving in your truck,

why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. Don't you shut now. All right. Okay, we're back. I feel like we kind of jumbled things up like a bunch of tarot sardbones. Sure.

So let's reset here, shall we? Should we reset with the head? Let's. The head crests. If you've seen a movie like Jurassic Park and you saw what you thought was a tarot dactyl and that any had that beautiful looking heat or she, well,

maybe he, because now they think that maybe only the males have these head crests. These things were sort of one of the staples of many, if not all of these species, but they were all really different and some fantastic looking. And they're not exactly sure. There's still a lot of debate over what they use these big crest for. Yeah, they thought maybe they used them as a rudder in the air to steer with as they're flying around. It does make sense. Some people thought that they may be used them as a marine rudder.

Maybe they used them for defense because they were like made of horn and bone covered with skin. And they think possibly they had coloring to them, maybe they had feathers or light fur. They're not quite sure, but because there's just such a lack of understanding and because tarisar fossils are so few and far between, it's still basically anybody's guess what they were used for. But then I think in Germany,

and I'm not exactly certain when this was discovered, but a female tarisar was discovered. And it had a, or I should say, she had an egg in her overducks still. So it was the only tarisar to ever be positively identified by sex in the history of the world. And she lacked that head crest. So it really lent support to the idea that it was males only, kind of like how a peacock has the very bright feathers, and the p-hen does not. They think that maybe it's the same thing,

or more akin to like antlers in deer or moose. Their males are the ones that have the antlers, and they think they use it maybe a little bit for defense, but mostly to say, hey, I'm a dude, and I'm looking for some action, check out the sides of my antlers. They think it was probably the same with tyrosars now. Yeah, and these things, like,

it's amazing when you look up these pictures. Some of them are just really fantastically colored. Some of them are really big, like that Topahara, Imperator. Yeah, if you look up one tarot sword during this episode, make it this guy. Yeah, this is cool.

This thing looks like it literally has a sailboat sail on top of its head. And like if the coloring is anywhere remotely like what the artist's conceptions are, it just must have been something to see. Yeah, that Nick Dessoris is pretty interesting too. This one didn't seem to have any sort of a, it looked like a sale without the sale.

Like what do you call the frame of the sale? I'm sure there's some great name for it. The timber. The timber. The timber. Sure. But these, I mean, they liken it in this article, the pump does to television in Tenei and they are really big and look only clunky to me. Yeah, I mean, it'd be good for skewering, I guess, but it could also be terrible for

skewering. Like, if you were hunting or spearing fish with it, you could probably catch a lot of fish, but you couldn't get the fish off, because these antennae were just way too tall and long. Yeah, and then this teradustro is really, you should look that one up too. It's pretty amazing. This one looks like it,

this one looks like if a dinosaur made it with a pelican and a toothbrush. Yeah, so one person described it as a toothbrush with wings. Yeah, though, like the lower jaw has like a thousand really long, small needle-like teeth. And it looks like this big toothbrushy under bite. Yeah, and it does, like when you look at it, you're like, oh, it's clearly gotta be related to a pelican. Again, it's not. Pelicans and bird and birds were around

during the time of dinosaurs, and if birds are anything, they're actually the real flying dinosaurs. But it does look a lot like it, and it makes sense that it would because from what we're learning about tarot sars now these days, is that a lot of them were ocean-going, that they had the goods to fly across an entire ocean

over the course of a few days, like maybe an albatross would, and that they would fly low some of them and skim the surface of these ancient oceans on Earth and scoop up marine life with their jaws, with their lower jaw, just like a pelican would. So what's even more interesting about that besides the idea that this is going on 100 million years ago is that pelicans are not related to these things, so that this trait, this behavior,

this characteristic evolved more than one time. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I find that fascinating, rather than saying, oh, pelicans descended from that. that's just too different branches of the same tree developing into something very similar. Evolution and isolation? Did that what they call that? Yeah, or no. Conversion evolution.

Okay. I think, yes, it is. It's conversion evolution. When a trader behavior characteristic develops separate and the same tree develops, it's a different tree. It's a different tree. I think yes it is. It's conversion evolution. When like a trait or behavior characteristic develops separately among different branches of the tree rather

than developing once and then descendants all have that same trait. Yeah and although they did certainly love a good seafood meal, they used to think that was sort of all they ate. And now new research suggests that they do eat or did eat all kinds of things, even tiny dinosaurs. Yeah, the way that they describe her now is that it's just like birds, right? You've got birds that eat all sorts of different things that fill all sorts of different ecological niches. That's what they're coming to the conclusion about with Taurusaurus, which I mean Chuck, this is like a huge sea change from what it was even back in the 1950s or 60s or 70s. And we thought there were just a few species and it turns out there were a ton of different ones and a lot of variety and a lot of diversity. And

now we're starting to kind of get a handle on that. Yeah, and they think they were probably able after they hatched to fly pretty quickly, to take care of themselves pretty quickly. And like you mentioned, they're flying, they believe now was, they were kind of built for the long haul. Didn't weren't super fast, but could, you know, like a long distance jet liner. Right. But some up in the were small, some of them were small as songbirds.

And I imagine they were flitty. Yeah, I can't remember the name of one, but there was one that was extremely tiny, a very tiny little flying tarot sore. Could you imagine anything more frightening than what you would call a tarot dactyl, the size of a robin? Yeah, I mean, imagine a hundred of those.

Or it could look kind of cool, like the little UFOs and batteries not included. Remember those? I didn't see that movie. Do you remember the ads or anything from it, though? No. It was basically cocoon, but set in a tenement and with UFOs rather than the actual aliens. Okay. It was very similar though. I think Donna Michi was in both maybe.

I don't know why not. He had that market cornered. If you can get your hands on Donna Michi, you put him in your movie, buddy. Yeah, for sure. So, okay. Where are we at, Chuck? Well, I think we can hop over to the fact that for many years, people thought we've already

mentioned birds, but bats was the other thing that people confused them with. There was an anatomy professor named Samuel Thomas von Summering, and in the 1800s he incorrectly suggested that these were bats. Another paleontologist named Harry Sealy even wrote a book called Dragons of the Sky in which he said birds were the descendants of these. And it's understandable why these dudes were wrong. They were doing the best they could. And when you look at those wings, it looks, you know, that membrane, it looks like it would be a bat's wing, but there are some differences. Yeah, there's some big differences. And you, like a bat in particular, I could see confusing it with, right? Like an ancient bat. Because with a bat, you have four digits. And three

of those digits form the bones in the wing and you got one little digit wiggling free so a back can climb around with its index fingers, right? Yes. With a tarisar, you have three digits that are free and then the pinky, the fourth digit is the one that forms that long, sometimes 10, 20 feet long bone that's the front end of the wing. Yeah, that's crazy. But they had three fingers free. And this is really significant because before they used to think, and if you go back and you look at how tarot actles were drawn in the middle of the 20th century,

when they weren't in flight. They were probably standing on their back legs and they realized that this is probably not how Taurus stood. That instead, because the, their forearms were far more powerful than their back legs, they were probably quadrupeds, which meant that they walked on all four legs using putting most of their weight on their front legs with their front forearms with their three free digits. And their wings tucked off to the side.

And they look kind of like a cartoon bulldog walks, is what I'm seeing. That's what they think now. Like a cartoon bulldog,. Yeah. Is what I'm seeing. That's what they think now. Like a cartoon bulldog, not a real one. Right. Well, I mean, a real bulldog doesn't walk quite like a cartoon bulldog. Cartoon bulldogs more exaggerated pronounced, you know what I mean?

Sure. It's a cartoon. Should we take another break? Sure. All right, we'll do that, and then we'll talk a little bit about how they fly and other good stuff right after this. Terrorist horrors. Oh, this stuff we live in from Josh and Chuck.

Stuff you should know. There's a ton of stuff they don't want you to know. Does the US government really have alien technology? And what about the future of artificial intelligence, AI? What happens when computers learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events.

We've spent a decade applying critical thinking to some of the most bizarre phenomenon civilization and beyond. Each week, we dive deep into unsolved mysteries, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies. You've heard about these things, but what's the full story? Listen to stuff they don't want you to know

on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. What's up fam? I'm Brian Ford, Artisan Baker and host of the new podcast Flaky Biscuit. On this podcast, I'm going to get to know my guests by cooking up their favorite nostalgic meal. It could be anything from Twinkies to moms Thanksgiving dressing Sometimes I might get it wrong sometimes I'll get it right. I'm so happy as good cuz man if it wasn't I'd be like you know Everybody not my mom

Either way, we will have a blast you'll have access to every recipe so you can cook and bake alongside me. As I talk to artists, musicians, and chefs about how this meal guided them to success. And these nostalgia meals fan, they inspire one of a kind conversations. When I bake this recipe, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Does this podcast come with a therapist? kind of bricks. Does this podcast come with a therapist? They can. Listen to Flaky Biscuit every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Overcome for Podcasts with Jenna Calopes. Yup, that's me. You may know my late mom, Jenny Rivera, my queen. She's been my guiding light as I bring you a new season of Over-Comfort podcast.

This season, I'll continue to discover and encourage you and me to get out of our comfort zones and choose our calling. Join me as I dive into conversations that will inspire you, challenge you, and bring you healing. We're on this journey together. I'm opening up about my life and telling my story in my own words. Yes, you'll hear it from me first before the Cheezman lands on your social media food. If you thought you knew everything, guess again. So I took another test with ancestry and it told me a lot about who I am and it led me to my biological father.

And everyone here, my friends, laugh, but I'm Puerto Rican! Listen to the Overcome for Podcasts with Jennifer Lopez as part of Michael Durán Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Well, now we're on the road driving in your truck why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck

it's stuff you should know. You should know. All right. All right. So you mentioned they were quadrupedal, four-footed. And initially, they thought that they would like birds because we see birds do it. And it's probably, especially back in the 1800s. It was

maybe they're all working off the notion of the easiest Solution is probably correct. Yeah, because they would see a bird hop off those back legs and think well This is clearly what terror doctals did. Yeah, and I never thought about that But that's exactly what a bird does it jumps up in the air from its back legs and flaps its wings and then provides lift from that point on using its wings. Yeah. I'd never really thought about that, but that's how birds fly.

Yeah, they hop around, and if they want to, and it's funny, one of the other articles you sent, one of those guys believe, the paleontologists believes that it even evolved into flying that they used to hop around on four legs and eventually they started jumping higher and higher and then started flapping and then before you knew what they were flying. Yeah, maybe they went from leaping to gliding to flying and they don't know. Again, they haven't found what you would call a proto-terrissor. Like whatever was the link between ancient reptiles and terrissars, but that's kind of the current guess right now, is that they evolved from some small light lizard that was

good at jumping. Yeah, and they're one of the big keys in finding out, and I don't think you said this, how strong their arms were Yeah, that sort of was a big breakthrough because when you think of like You think it all comes from the legs because they're jumping but because they found more fossils They realized they were quadrupedal and they said man They actually have it incredibly strong arms and shoulders and these little tiny feet. So, not only are they quadrupedal,

but a lot of that initial hopping lift may come from the arms and not the legs at all. So, they think now what they do is basically push themselves off their front arms and legs to an extent and just basically hop up into the air and then start flapping their wings rather than like a bird jumping off of their back legs. Is that what you mean?

Yeah, and then, but most of that comes from the arms and shoulders rather than the feet. Right. And the feet, I think, just sort of drag behind and perhaps maybe help to steering, is that right? Yeah, and they, so there were, you can actually divide terraces into two groups depending on when they, they were around. One started, around 150 million years ago, and then one came later, and the first groups had long tails.

So if you look at old drawings of teradactyls, you'll frequently see with kind of like a long forked devil's tail, you know? And that, it's actually kind of like a long, forked devil's tail. Yeah. And that's actually kind of accurate, they think, that the original ones had longer tails to learn to steer in the air, but then as they got more and more adapted to flying gracefully, they lost their tails. So the later ones, the ones that were around when the Cretaceous period ended suddenly, mostly called Ozdark Kids, which is not an easy word to pronounce. That they had lost their tails because they had developed other methods of changing how

they fly mid-flight. So like they, because the wing membrane was connected to their ankle from their shoulder, with their finger kind of providing the front of the wing, if they altered the angle of their wristbone or they moved their ankle in and out, it would change the actual dynamics of their wing and they could dive and lift and do all sorts of other things. Which is this is a big sea change in our understanding of Tarrisaurus II, because they used to think that they basically had to run and jump off of a cliff

to gain flight. Or hang like that. Yeah, because they were so weird looking and so weirdly developed in different ways. Huge heads, enormous beaks, big head crests, small puny little withered feet, you know, like Mr. Burns' hands. Or yeah, that's a good one.

Or David Cross in the Titanic segment on Mr. Show. You're like that, right? That's like a tarot saw as legs. So it didn't make any sense how they flew, but now that we're starting to learn more and more about them, we're like, oh, actually, they had a lot of really, really interesting adaptations. Not the least of which was their bones.

Yeah, I mean, are all of their bones hollow or just those wing bones? All of them. Wow, I mean, that made them incredibly light, obviously, but that also ended up being one of the problems In trying to get fossils of these guys because they just they were very highly destructible Non-fossilizable non fossilizable. Do you remember our fossil episode?

That was like one of the better old ones if you asked me. Yeah, I agree. I learned I learned a lot on that Yeah, we should try that out in the select soon. That's a great idea. That'd be a good one. They also thought if they were on water, like they had just had a little snack on a lake that they would use those wings as paddles and just get going that way,

pushing off the surface and then flapping until they were shaking it off 20 feet above the water. Right, exactly. A lot like marine birds do today, right? So those bones, like you kind of hit it on the head, they were extremely light, right? They were about a millimeter thick, something like the thickness of a playing card I saw. That's a button that. It is, super nuts, especially considering that these things were holding up like a bird that was up to 20 feet tall, right?

Mm-hmm. Or not a bird, a tarot star. Yeah, not a gerodactyl. Man, I just averted so much email chuck. Like a millimeter thick bone wall, but the way that their bones were made, they were made of cross sections of basically like plywood. So they were really strong. And then if you cut their bone in two and looked down the hollow tube, you would see that there are little struts Chris crossing to provide even more internal support for those bones.

Amazing. So you could have a 20-foot tall for those bones. Amazing. So you could have a 20-foot tall tarisar that could actually fly because it was that light. I saw one of the, as dark kids, was something like had a 20-foot wingspan, but it probably didn't weigh any more than 20 pounds. Yeah, and some of these, I mean, what were the largest ones, like 35, 40 feet in wing span? Yeah, so about like 10 to 15 meters in wing span, like the size of like a jet plane, like

a fighter jet. I just flew in my first private jet. Oh, yeah, how was it? You know what? First of all, I've always wanted to fly on a private jet, but never thought I would have caused to, because you know, unless you're extremely wealthy, you only do that if you get invited to for some strange reason. You don't just book it. You should be on high alert if some wealthy person invites you on their private jet. And it was awesome.

It was as awesome as you think. And the most awesome part of it was the, uh, just the sheer lack of hassle. Yeah. Like you, like I parked my car at the little tiny airport here in Decap County, uh, walked across the parking lot and into the lobby. And there's literally a guy standing there, a captain, and he was like, are you Chuck?

And I said, yes, and he said, right this way, and he walked out the back door, and there's a plane, and they say, watch your head, you get on it, and he says, you ready to go? That's, was it just you? No, no, no, that was like five of us on an eight-seater. Everybody was waiting for you. Yeah, it was the last person to get there.

And I was a little stressed, but then I thought, wait a minute, that's the other perk, is they don't leave you. Yeah, you're like, there, I mean, there's a schedule, but it's not like, really late. But it was cool. I mean, the one we were on was, I mean, it's not roomy, so it's not like Air Force

one or anything. Like, you feel like you can just walk around. But like, when I was standing, I'm five foot 10. And if I said completely straight, my head would brush the ceiling a little bit. But, uh, and you're just like, uh, private,. But no TSA, like, you just, you just walk on. They fly you there. And then you get off and you're right there. It's like this, just the lack of hassle. And all I could think of was like, man, it must be great to be a billionaire. Sure.

And never have to deal with an airport again. Yeah. That, uh, yeah, it was kind of cool. But then also once you're up there, you're kind of like, eh, well, you know, it's, it's not like life changing. Yeah, you you me actually, I've never flown on one. You me flew on one and she said basically the exact same thing you did that just the the lack of hassle and how fast you get somewhere. Yeah. Is just just beyond amazing. Yeah, I mean, it takes away hours and hours of airport crap. I know. You start to develop like that terrible sensation where your eyes hurt for some weird reason, even though you

haven't even gotten on the plane yet. Like, there's a lot of stuff that I'd be happy to leave behind. Yeah, and it also when you're going to take off because it's small, it feels like you're going as fast as you're going, whereas in a jumbo jet, it really doesn't. Like I was kind of like, man, we're going fast. So, oh, hey, so speaking of Yumi and flying, I have an update. Do you remember the story about the Russia Vs. that we failed to get?

Oh, sure. I told her that I told that story and she was like, you said we forgot and I was like, you said we forgot? And I was like, yeah, we did, right? And she's like, no. We asked like five different people, five different times, and we're told we didn't need visas.

So I wanted to let you know Chuck, that we actually are as buttoned up as you think. We were just misinformed. We got that great email from a new listener that was like, listen to some dumb story about some guy in his dumb visa. I was like, listen to some dumb story about some guy and dumb visa. I was like, oh, welcome to the show brother. Yeah, this should probably, uh, there's the exit door. Was that that guy, that one guy? Uh-huh. Oh, okay. He's very turned off by

your aside about your visa story. Yeah, whatever. Uh, so anyway, thanks for indulging the private jet convo. Yeah, I'll bet that guy loved the private jet aside. It'll probably never happen again, but it was basically like riding around on a terrace r. So that's how I wedged it in there. Nice work. That is nice. So I'm trying to think of what else.

Like, terrace r is kind of bring out the little entertain-year-old to me. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm wearing my little outdoor archaeologist boots. I see that. White pull-up crew socks, and I'm just a total little nerd. You keep dusting everything in here, too. I'm not even like one of those dinosaur nerds, but just getting into researching dinosaur. Does it do that to you, too? It just kind of draws out like the little kid. I think so, and I think probably because at least when I was in you and I were growing up,

I feel like public schools just like did such a poor job of talking about these periods. Oh, yeah. You know, yeah, I remember that. But I also remember dinosaurs being kind of huge in the 80s. Yeah, at least they were in Ohio. Does that know how you think? I don't know, I'm trying to remember. I mean, Jurassic Park obviously changed everything as far as, but when was that? Nineties. Yeah, early nineties.

Yeah, but I feel like dinosaurs are pretty popular among the kids before that. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I hit my head and don't realize it. I don't know. I know kids, I mean, my daughter loves dinosaurs, so it's a thing. Yeah, it definitely is a thing. And it's getting to be even more of a thing the more we learn about tarisaurus too, which is somebody called the 21st century

the golden age of tarisaur research. So they're expecting big things from the field. Yeah, and like you said, hopefully they can find that proto-terrace or, and that's when the community really gets all excited when they can make those links. Hey, you know, it's speaking to the community. I read this article in National Geographic, and God bless them.

I can't remember the guy who wrote it, but it's called Why Terrasars Were the Weirdest Wonders on Wings. Yeah, it was a good one. It was a great article. I can't remember the guy who wrote it, but it's called Why Terasar is where the weirdest wonders on wings. Yeah, it was a good one. It's a great article. And the guy basically just got into all the dirty laundry of the Terasar paleontology community. And apparently they're very well known among paleontologists

for just despising each other. Like the Terasar paleontologists don't like each other, talk smack about each other publicly, and just sn-sar paleontologists don't like each other, talk smack about each other publicly, and just snipe at one another a lot, which just makes the whole thing even that much more fascinating, you know? Like the real competitive and real backbiting. Interesting. Yeah, and in this case, that's a good thing. Yeah, because they keep pushing one another. Agreed. You got anything else? No.

Are we doing with taris hours? I don't have anything else I don't think. Okay. Well, if you want to know more about taris hours, go to your local natural history museum and say, hey, tell me about that tarot actal. See if you can stump them. And since I said stump, it it's time for listener mail. Ding.

I'm gonna call this one. Which one is this one? Oh, foot binding. I believe we did this in a select episode. It's one of our older ones, but a really good one, I think. Agreed. And this goes like this. Hey guys, I'm assuming to be grad student from

Guandong, China, and have been a listener for a couple of years now. This is my first time riding in. And it's about foot binding. I talked to my grandmother after listening. Remembering she told me that her grandmother had bound her feet. I asked if great, great grandma had trouble walking. And she said she had never even wobbled a little bit because it turns out she never made her own little shoes. She just bought toddler shoes for herself. No, that's called making lemons. No, that's called making lemonade out of lemons with your feet.

That's right. She said great, great grandma came from a wealthy family and bound feet for more of a symbol of your family wealth, meaning you don't have to do farming chores and catering to the male foot fetish at that time. We are not exactly sure when she was born, but we do know that when her daughter, my great grandmother was born in 1914, she made sure that her feet were never bound.

She also put all of her kids through high school, which is very remarkable back then. Oh, yeah. Foot binding is certainly not something that I am proud of. To think that I'm just five generations away from having to get my own feet bound. It's supposed to sit here writing you guys right now. It just says to me how far we've gone. Thanks for the show. By the way, in the draft podcast, Josh was having trouble pronouncing Q-I-N-G, the honesty. Yeah. Q may be roughly pronounced as T-S.

No. Not exactly the same. So just say, sing next time that would do. I didn't even think I tried that one. I tried every other phoneme except for sing. And this is Best regards from Ruowy. Thank you very much Ruowy. That's pretty cool and like nice

sense of perspective too. If you want to get in touch with us with an awesome story like Ruo-We did, you can catch up with us on social media. Just go to our website stuffyshinno.com and you will find all of our social med links there. And if you want, send us a good old fashioned email. Wrap it up, smack it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcasts at HowStuffWorks.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. favorite shows. So, there is a ton of stuff they don't want you to know.

Yeah, like does the US government really have alien technology? Or what about the future of AI? What happens when computers actually learn to think? Could there be a serial killer in your town? From UFOs to psychic powers and government cover-ups, from unsolved crimes to the bleeding edge of science, history is riddled with unexplained events. Listen to stuff they don't want you to know on the iHeart Radio app Apple

podcasts or wherever you find your favorite shows. Hi, Jenna Colopus here with the new season of My Overcomefort Podcast. What's over-comfort all about? It's about inspiring, confidence in all of us and choosing calling over-comfort. Every Tuesday I'll be having real and honest conversations. You'll hear it from me first before any cheeseman hits your social media feed. Join me as I create a space where opening up is not only okay, it's encouraged. Listen to Overcome for Podcasts with Jenna Colopas

on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ OUTRO MUSIC [♪ I'm Carolina Bermudez, and your favorite podcast is back for season 4 with topics and discussions you won't want to miss. Get ready to immerse yourself in the vibrant and dynamic world of life in Spanish, where cultures collide and language becomes a bridge, not a barrier. From the city to the suburbs, life in Spanish explores the joys and challenges of navigating life into languages. Listen on the IHR radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.