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→And if they flew, they would be birds, surely?
::: What about them? Pterodactyls were neither dinosaurs nor birds. I'm defining birds the way birds are commonly defined these days. I don't see the relevance of the last question, but I'm not even sure that there ''were'' feathered dinosaurs, let alone knowing if they were warm-blooded. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:05, 13 June 2008 (EDT)
::: What about them? Pterodactyls were neither dinosaurs nor birds. I'm defining birds the way birds are commonly defined these days. I don't see the relevance of the last question, but I'm not even sure that there ''were'' feathered dinosaurs, let alone knowing if they were warm-blooded. [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 07:05, 13 June 2008 (EDT)
:::: I was referring to the "definition" of birds as egg-laying feathered warm-blooded animals, all of which may or may not have been characteristics of some species commonly or scientifically referred to as "dinosaurs." This is why whether or not pterodactyls being warm-blooded or not may be relevant, since it is still not completely determined whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded like reptiles or warm-blooded like birds. As for your first statement, if pterodactyls were neither birds nor dinosaurs, where do you think they fall? Palaeontology textbooks (which admittedly always take the evolutionist side) classify them in Dinosauria (though some books list Aves as a subset of Dinosauria). [[User:CherryS|CherryS]] 13:08 13 June 2008
:::: I was referring to the "definition" of birds as egg-laying feathered warm-blooded animals, all of which may or may not have been characteristics of some species commonly or scientifically referred to as "dinosaurs." This is why whether or not pterodactyls being warm-blooded or not may be relevant, since it is still not completely determined whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded like reptiles or warm-blooded like birds. As for your first statement, if pterodactyls were neither birds nor dinosaurs, where do you think they fall? Palaeontology textbooks (which admittedly always take the evolutionist side) classify them in Dinosauria (though some books list Aves as a subset of Dinosauria). [[User:CherryS|CherryS]] 13:08 13 June 2008
:::: Correction, old paleontology textbooks think pterosaurs are dinosaurs, but most believe them now to be true reptiles that could fly. You learn something new every day! :) [[User:CherryS|CherryS]] 13:13 13 June 2008