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By modern I don't nescesarily mean the 21st century, but just the relatively modern age in which Homo Sapiens Sapiens has existed. The last 10,000-20,000 years.

Could they have been tamed and controlled?

And the more pressing question: Could they have been ridden? Did they have enough lifting power to carry a man?

And if the answers to both questions above are "yes", thus giving humans of days gone by flying mounts, how would this have changed the course of history? (I'm thinking "history" as in the rise and fall of Empires, warfare, exploration, discovery, technology etc.)

No. and No.

It's incredibly hard work, energywise, to fly. Every single aspect of the pterosaur's morphology is finely tuned to be able to fly - including its weight. Stick a human on top and kerplunk.

There were some fucking huge ones, but I doubt they carried prey as big as humans for significant distances. You're talking about dragons, here.

Think about it - can any birds be captured and tamed to carry a man?

Birds can be captured and tamed - trained, and will obey the commands of their master. Have you never heard of falconry?

The reason birds can't be ridden is that they are not big enough to carry a human. It's not because they're too stupid to be domesticated and trained.

The largest Pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, had a wingspan of over 40 feet and weighed 300 pounds. Now, given that most birds can lift about their own weight again into the air, and assuming a similar ability for a Pterosaur... a small slim man or even a woman, weighing about 100 pounds or a little over, shouldn't tax a Quetzalcoatlus too much.

Unless there is some other glaring reason.

300lbs is really high for a Quetzalcoatlus. They probably topped out at about 200, and they would be the fatsos of the genus. And I don't think comparing their carrying abilities to those of birds really works, because 1) birds are better fliers than pterosaurs, and 2) there's never been a bird anywhere near the size of a Quetza. Also, the question becomes, where does this theoretical passenger ride? If it rides on its back, the thing won't be able to take off--look at how much trouble the modern albatross has. It has to run down the beach and leap into the air and hope it catches a thermal. If not, it crashes on its face and looks very silly. Now take an albatross and expand it to the size of a P-51, and make it take off with, say, a racing jockey on its back. If the passenger rides underneath, the same problems at takeoff occur. The only concievable way to even get a passenger on board is to have the animal snatch it off the ground while in midflight, and I don't think any pteranodon's feet are designed for that (they were primarily fish and carrion eaters, judging by jaw structure, and their teeth seem much better suited for holding fish than their talons do).

Now, taming them is a different matter. They were probably intelligent enough to be trained--pterosaurs all had a very high brain to body weight ratio compared to their contemporaries, which makes sense as all flying vertebrates known today are relatively intelligent, and their physiology was undoubtedly closer to modern birds than reptiles. How, exactly, you tame a 180lb animal with a 40ft wingspan, is beyond me, but nothing we know about their brains specifically rules it out. The real problem, I think, is that they'd make much more inviting meals than companions, especially since a Quetza on the ground would be slow, clumsy, and have a difficult time taking off. They'd be an easy target for anyone who's halfway decent with a spear.

Someone been playing too much Joust?
Send in the ostriches!

Hang on, where's my other post?
Actually, I was online when the upgrade started, so I may have lost it.

OK, I wasn't saying that birds couldn't be trained - I was saying they couldn't be trained to carry a human.

I've been looking at drawings of skulls, and although some had a reasonable brain case, most seemed to be very small. Don't forget that brain mass to body mass is going to be high on an animal that has to be very light. Birds are intelligent mainly because they're raptors - bats are intelligent because they're mammals. Intelligence isn't needed for flight, as dragonflies are thick as shit (OK, OK, so insects swim, not fly).

innerbrat wrote:Hang on, where's my other post?
Actually, I was online when the upgrade started, so I may have lost it.

OK, I wasn't saying that birds couldn't be trained - I was saying they couldn't be trained to carry a human.

I've been looking at drawings of skulls, and although some had a reasonable brain case, most seemed to be very small. Don't forget that brain mass to body mass is going to be high on an animal that has to be very light. Birds are intelligent mainly because they're raptors - bats are intelligent because they're mammals. Intelligence isn't needed for flight, as dragonflies are thick as shit (OK, OK, so insects swim, not fly).

But even a cardinal is relatively intelligent compared to, say, a lizard. Anyway, I'll give him the assumption that they're intelligent enough to be trained--it's not like it matters much in the overall scheme of things. A pterosaur would be a cave man's dinner, not his pet.

The largest of them didn't really fly but more like glided, so putting on the extra weight of a human would not allow it to take off. The Pterosaurs were extremely fragile with hollow bones and thin membraned wings. They were not the rugged creatures we see in some of those Forgotten World type films.

RedImperator wrote:

innerbrat wrote: I've been looking at drawings of skulls, and although some had a reasonable brain case, most seemed to be very small. Don't forget that brain mass to body mass is going to be high on an animal that has to be very light. Birds are intelligent mainly because they're raptors - bats are intelligent because they're mammals. Intelligence isn't needed for flight, as dragonflies are thick as shit (OK, OK, so insects swim, not fly).

But even a cardinal is relatively intelligent compared to, say, a lizard. Anyway, I'll give him the assumption that they're intelligent enough to be trained--it's not like it matters much in the overall scheme of things. A pterosaur would be a cave man's dinner, not his pet.

Yes, but a compsognathus was intelligent compared to a lizard, so my point still stands... (as irrelevant as it is)

Why even try? Honestly. Training the larger ones would be a waste of time and effort, the benifit of doing so would be miniman, unless of course you just want the bragging rights of having a Quetzalcoatlus on a leash.

I personally would devote more time to traing more useful pterosaurs. Like Rhamphoryncus. at least something like that could be trained as a reasonable messanger, or minion/pet(I use the term minion for my houspets)

AWACS wrote: The largest Pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, had a wingspan of over 40 feet and weighed 300 pounds. Now, given that most birds can lift about their own weight again into the air, and assuming a similar ability for a Pterosaur... a small slim man or even a woman, weighing about 100 pounds or a little over, shouldn't tax a Quetzalcoatlus too much.

Unless there is some other glaring reason.

In one of the Cryptozoology books I read many years ago there were rumors that some Quetzalcoatlus may have survived into 20th century Texas.

Weight aside, a human would likely present too much drag if they rode on top of the wings along the things back. The rider would alos impead the beating of the wings.

Look, its been argued in paleontological circles that the damn pterosaurs never even really flew, they just glided and used air currents. As such ANY excess weight above and beyond that of some small prey would likely result in them being unable to fly.

innerbrat wrote:

RedImperator wrote:

innerbrat wrote: I've been looking at drawings of skulls, and although some had a reasonable brain case, most seemed to be very small. Don't forget that brain mass to body mass is going to be high on an animal that has to be very light. Birds are intelligent mainly because they're raptors - bats are intelligent because they're mammals. Intelligence isn't needed for flight, as dragonflies are thick as shit (OK, OK, so insects swim, not fly).

But even a cardinal is relatively intelligent compared to, say, a lizard. Anyway, I'll give him the assumption that they're intelligent enough to be trained--it's not like it matters much in the overall scheme of things. A pterosaur would be a cave man's dinner, not his pet.

Yes, but a compsognathus was intelligent compared to a lizard, so my point still stands... (as irrelevant as it is)

Eh. Point conceded.

RedImperator wrote:2) there's never been a bird anywhere near the size of a Quetza.

Argentavis magnificence[/1] comes pretty damn close, it stood some 6ft tall, I forget its wingspread at the moment. it was a giant eagle from south america, I believe the middle of the cenezoic. don't have the information on it readily available.

then, their were the terratorns of North Americas Pliestocene, they were pterrosaur sized vultures, I believe.