Using the neck and head to stand up?

[Richard W. Travsky]

 

Happened across a video on shoebills and noted something interesting on how a chick got up on its legs: it used its neck and beak tip to brace itself, essentially assuming a tripodal stance – about the 1:20 mark

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ArjlPAU_X4

 

It also moved its wings around to steady itself.

 

Would/could this be a strategy for theropods to standup?

 

[Ronald ORENSTEIN]

Or pterosaurs?

Ronald Orenstein 1825 Shady Creek Court Mississauga, ON L5L 3W2 Canada ronorenstein.blogspot.com

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[Jura]

Hard to say. Attenborough mentions that the large head is offsetting the center of balance for the shoebill youngster, but even in Tyrannosaurus that wouldn't really be an issue thanks to that large counterbalancing tail.

For pterosaurs there may be a better case, but most interpretations have them as quadrupeds anyway, so their balance is even more solid. Using the head to aid in tree climbing may have been a thing for some pterosaurs, though.

[Tim Williams]

Richard W. Travsky wrote:

> It also moved its wings around to steady itself.

I will watch pretty much anything narrated by David Attenborough.  I found this shoebill video especially fascinating.

I also noticed that the mother shoebill raises both her wings as she lunges forward to snatch the 'prey' with her beak.  Do the wings help in providing balance during predation?

Jura <arch...@gmail.com> wrote:

> For pterosaurs there may be a better case, but most interpretations have them as quadrupeds anyway, so their balance is even more solid. Using the head to aid in tree climbing may have been a thing for some pterosaurs, though.

Juvenile hoatzins use the head/neck when tree-climbing.  Based on the work of Abourachid et al. (2019), the head and neck play a major role in pulling the chick upward through branches.