Welcome to Pterosaurology

Hi. I am Rubi Pêgas, and I am a paleontologist. More specifically, I study pterosaurs — those weird flying reptiles that look like nature briefly decided to experiment and then just… kept going. But before that, and very much still today, I am a paleonerd.

This blog is for all of us who stop mid-scroll because a fossil reconstruction popped up, who wonder whether that pose really makes anatomical sense, who get excited about weird joints, membranes, teeth, tails, and all the delightful complications that come with trying to reconstruct animals that have been dead for tens of millions of years.

Paleontology is a wonderful science to be obsessed with — and a dangerous one to simplify. Fossils are fascinating precisely because they are mysterious and incomplete. They invite interpretation and imagination (and sometimes a degree of speculation, or even full-on delusions).

Pterosaurs will appear a lot around here, because they are endlessly weird and because I love them so much. They challenge almost everything we think we know about flight, posture, and what a vertebrate body can get away with. But they won’t be alone. Any vertebrate fossil, reconstruction, or palaeontological debate that sparks curiosity, confusion, or mild internet chaos is fair game.

So if you like fossils, prehistoric animals, and asking annoying but necessary questions about how we know what we know — welcome.

Enjoy!