The Pterosauria

David Martill is a leading expert on Mesozoic vertebrate palaeontology and the preservation of exceptional fossils. He first became interested in pterosaurs when he met Dave Unwin in the 1980s and the two of them worked on the exceptional preservation of the pterosaur flight membrane. After completing his Ph.D. on the preservation and palaeoecology of Jurassic marine reptiles at the University of Leicester David undertook postdoctoral research as a Harkness Fellow at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. After a spell at the Open University he moved to the University of Portsmouth where his research has concentrated on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs and the fauna of the famous Crato Formation of Brazil. His field work has included expeditions to discover dinosaurs and pterosaurs in Brazil, Chile, Malawi, Morocco and Germany. David Unwin is a leading authority on pterosaurs. He became fascinated by them as an undergraduate and went on to complete a Ph.D. on the relationships and evolution of pterosaurs at the University of Reading. Following postdoctoral research in Moscow and in the University of Bristol, David became Curator of Fossil Reptiles and Birds in the Museum for Natural History, Berlin in 1997. In 2005 he moved back to England to take up a position in the Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. During the last 25 years David has researched and published on many aspects of pterosaurs, most notably the structure of the wing membranes, pterosaur's walking ability, development of giant pterosaurs and the history of the group. Most recently his work has focused on China where he has helped to describe several new pterosaurs including Darwinopterus - a remarkable transitional form that hints at a modular form of evolution. Robert Loveridge is a research fellow in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Portsmouth and a biologist with interests in the origin and evolution of palaeofloras, especially of the Crato Formation of Brazil, and Mesozoic palaeontology in general. He has considerable field experience in the Cretaceous of North Africa, Brazil and Europe. Bob discovered his first pterosaur while leading a student field trip to the Solnhofen Limestone of Germany in 2009. He has been involved in several other book and TV projects, including The Crato Fossil Beds of Brazil with David Martill and Gunter Bechly (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and is a skilled photographer.