On October 20, 2006 at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Ottawa,
Canada, in response to the Wilkinson, Unwin, and Ellington 2006 paper "High lift function of the pteroid
bone and forewing of pterosaurs." (Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., B, 273:119-126), I was compelled to offer a
reward for any and all specimens that actually preserve a pteroid bone articulated in the fovea of the
preaxial carpal. Here is the slide annoucing the reward:
I then followed up with the next slide to show just how important this is to me. Two cases of your favorite
Canadian beer is twice the reward I am offering for Nessie and Sasquatch.
By the way, in case you are concerned, the boxes of beer shown in the photos are twelve-packs not cases.
Where I live, full cases are not available, only twelve-packs. Despite that the reward is for two cases, thus
a full forty-eight bottles of your favorite Canadian beer. Good hunting, eh?!
This reward was discussed at the Wellnhofer Pterosaur Meeting in Munich in September 2007. In response
to some who were praising German beers and casting aspersions on Canadian beers, I decided to modify
the reward to two cases of your favorite Canadian or German beer. Given the present exchange rates of
Canadian dollars or Euros to American dollars the reward will now cost me considerably more should
anyone actually find a pteroid-in-fovea, but I am confident enough of my position to take the risk.
This reward is now essentially meaningless because in October 2008 at the 68th Annual Meeting of the
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Cleveland, Ohio, Dave Unwin acknowledged that the pteroid
did not articulate in the distal fovea of the preaxial. Seems to me that he ought to send me at
least one case of my favorite Canadian beer, but I'm not holding my breath.
OK, so how about a 12-pack of Moosehead?
A 6-pack of Red Stripe?
Come on, I'm gettin' thirsty here!