Thursday, December 11, 2008

Phage

In the Squawk Role-Playing Game, phages are pterosaurs that drink blood, similar to vampire bats. Pterosaurs are flying reptiles, probably archosaurs, with leathery wings. Pterosaurs look a bit like their bird cousins and and a bit like their more distant bat relatives, but they also have unique features including wings supported by a single elongated finger instead of the four-fingered wings of bats or the fused hands of birds.

Vampire bats are not the only real-life animals that feed on blood. Many invertebrates also practice hematophagy, including mosquitoes, some worms and most leaches. So do some lampreys and even a bird called the oxpecker. Although we don't know of any actual blood eating pterosaurs, Mark Witton and Darren Naish's Azhdarchid Paleobiology research challenges the stereotype that all pterosaurs lived by fishing and scavenging like modern shorebirds.

More pictures and information about phages...

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