Edward IV died very suddenly at the age of forty. His son became King Edward V of England, but his reign did not last long. Edward's brother, Richard, thought that it would not be a good idea for a boy to be king, and he took the throne himself. No one really knows what happened to Edward's two sons, the Princes in the Tower.
He was seen as a strong and popular king, he was also tall at 6"4 (194cm) which was very tall for a man in the 15th century, his height as a tall monarch was passed only by Peter I of Russia who was 6"8 (203cm)
Pterosaur
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles which lived in the Mesozoic era at the same time as the dinosaurs. Many pterosaurs were fairly small, but in the Upper Cretaceous some grew larger than any other flying animals. The pterosaur "Quetzalcoatlus" had a wing-span of up to 12 metres (~40 feet).
The first fossils occur in the Upper Triassic, and the group continues until the K/T extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous (220 to 65.5 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were made from a flap of skin between their bodies and a big fourth finger (sometimes called the "wing finger"). The pterosaurs fall into two groups. The earlier Rhamphorhynchoids (e.g. "Rhamphorhynchus") had long tails and toothed jaws; The pterodactyloids (e.g. "Pterodactylus") had short tails, and many had beaks with no teeth.
The first pterosaur fossil was discovered in the Late Jurassic Solnhofen limestone in Germany in 1784. This was exactly the same place as "Archaeopteryx" was found years later. Georges Cuvier first suggested that pterosaurs were flying creatures in 1801. Since the first pterosaur fossil was found, twenty-nine species of pterosaurs have been found in those deposits alone. A famous early UK find was an example of "Dimorphodon" by Mary Anning, in 1828 at Lyme Regis, Dorset, England. The name Pterosauria was coined in 1834.
Pterosaurs were genuine fliers, able to flap or soar. Their bodies were covered with fine hairs, so they were able to regulate their temperature (they were warm-blooded). They are a close sister-group to the dinosaurs, part of the Archosauria.
This early group did well from the Upper Triassic to the Lower Cretaceous. When we first see them in the fossil record they have developed three families, so biologists know their early evolution is not yet revealed. These three families are represented by the three genera "Rhamphorhynchus", "Dimorphodon" and "Eudimorphodon". At least one more family appears at the start of the Jurassic, the Anurognathidae.
The group had a long tail, usually stiffened by rod-like bony tendons to keep it straight. This shows that their flight was extremely stable, which means it kept on course, rather than darted about. This feature is also found in "Archaeopteryx" and in early bats, and in insects like dragonflies.
To understand this, it helps to know some basic things about flight aerodynamics and stability. Early planes were highly stable, and so are airliners. To dart about quickly requires special advanced brains and reflexes, which later birds and pterosaurs had, but early ones did not. The analogy in planes would be fighter planes, which need such fast reactions that the details are worked out by computer, with the pilot indicating where to go. It requires more brains to control unstable flight than it does stable flight.
All species in the group have teeth. This again has a parallel with birds; "Archaeopteryx" and many Cretaceous birds have teeth; modern birds do not. The disadvantage of teeth is that they are quite heavy; when the animal can do without them, they will gradually get selected out. Obviously, without teeth food cannot be chewed, but there are ways around that. Stones in the gizzard or stomach do the grinding in some birds.
For a long time it was thought that the group died out at the end of the Jurassic, which was a minor extinction event. Even near the end of the Jurassic, "Rhamphorhynchus" was the most common pterosaur found at the famous "Archaeopteryx" site at Solnhofen in Bavaria, Germany, and now it is known that the group survived until the Lower Cretaceous. "Until recently, it was thought that rhamphorhynchoids died out at the end of the Jurassic, but new finds in the Jehol sequence of northeast China [show] that in this part of the world they survived until at least the middle of the Lower Cretaceous".
A single specimen of the insect-eating "Anurognathus" was also found at Solnhofen. It had a shorter tail than any other rhamphorhynchoid. This suggests its need to dodge about to catch insects: "agile and highly manoeuvrable".
Fossil pterodactyloids appear in the Upper Jurassic. They were short-tailed pterosaurs, suggesting that they had more sophisticated control of their flight, which no doubt gave them some advantages. 2–300 specimens of 17 different species of pterosaur has been found at Solnhofen from eight different genera. They include the earliest examples of "Pterodactylus", and "Germanodactylus", a genus which is also found in England and China. "Ctenochasma", also from Solnhofen, had a comb of 260 thin teeth showing it to be a filter-feeder that may have waded or swam in the water. There were several other genera with similar life-styles.
In the Lower Cretaceous there were many pterodactyloids, mostly quite small. Gradually, larger versions evolved, and by the Upper Cretaceous most pterosaurs had huge wing-spans and clearly covered huge distances soaring on upcurrents in a warm environment. "Pteranodon", with a wing-span of over 20 feet (7m), and "Quetzalcoatlus", with a wingspan of 40 feet (12m) are famous examples. The question of their eating habits is still undecided.
Since birds were already common in the Lower Cretaceous, they would have competed vigorously with the smaller pterodactyloids. That may explain the extinction of the smaller pterosaur species, though the lack of fossils from the forested areas makes it difficult to judge. The huge Upper Cretaceous types clearly lived a different life-style from the smaller species, and one which was not yet accessible to birds. As the climate changed in the Upper Cretaceous, becoming colder and more seasonal, the number of pterosaurs became fewer. Like most of the larger species on Earth, the huge pterosaurs did not survive the K/T extinction event. At least some families of birds did. So ended the competition between the two types of flying reptile through the long 79 million years of the Cretaceous period.
There are many adaptations of the head and jaws of pterosaurs, so it is quite certain that different forms used different feeding methods, as birds do. Overall, most fossils have been found in marine strata, which suggests that they could fly well over water, and that fish were on the menu for many species. The jaws of fish-eaters was long and often held forward-pointing teeth, good for catching fish (see "Anhanguera"). Remains of a last fish supper have been found in "Pteranodon".
Fossils show that one pterosaur, the "Pterodaustro" found in Argentina, had comb-like strainers in its mouth. The pterosaur probably ate by filling its lower jaw with water and pushing the water out of its mouth through the strainers. The strainers could catch any plankton or other small creatures that were in the water, and when the water was gone, the animal could eat what was left. Other species had long, compressed lower jaws, which suggest they were skimmers at the top of the water.
The other main item of diet was the insects. Flying insects were abundant in the Mesozoic, and many pterosaur species give clear signs that this was their food. These have a broad mouth, often with short peg-like teeth.