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Azhdarchids
Because I don't recall anybody mentioning them before, and because I was listening to the pterosaur episode of the Monster Talk podcast today
Azhdarchids ( named after the Persian dragon Aži Dahāka ) were pterosaurs with long legs and extremely long necks. Most species of azhdarchids are known from these distinctive neck bones and not much else. The few azhdarchids found as reasonably complete fossils include the famous Quetzalcoatlus. They were among the very last pterosaurs around, before the K-T extinction that finished them and most other large animals off at the end of the Cretaceous. Azhdarchids were also noteworthy for their relatively large heads and long, spear-like jaws. For a long time effort was made to model these guys as skimmers, but now paleontologists have thrown up their hands and accepted the fact that trying to picture these things flying around delicately plucking small fish from surface waters is a quick route to gibbering insanity, and posit that they stalked around like storks.
picture from Mark Witton and Darren Naish
They were big. Very big. How big are we talking about here? The following pic will give you an idea. Quetzacoatlus, Homo sapiens, and Giraffa camelopardalis to scale
Picture by Mark Witton, again, here
And that's just Quetzalcoatlus. Arambourgiania philidelphae and Hatzagopteryx thambema were even bigger. An estimated 12 - 14 metres from wingtip to wingtip. Even without that terrifying wingspan, they had the largest skulls of any land animal that we have any clue existed.
More of Witton's work - he's a pterosaur specialist at the University of Portsmouth, after all - here
Azhdarchids ( named after the Persian dragon Aži Dahāka ) were pterosaurs with long legs and extremely long necks. Most species of azhdarchids are known from these distinctive neck bones and not much else. The few azhdarchids found as reasonably complete fossils include the famous Quetzalcoatlus. They were among the very last pterosaurs around, before the K-T extinction that finished them and most other large animals off at the end of the Cretaceous. Azhdarchids were also noteworthy for their relatively large heads and long, spear-like jaws. For a long time effort was made to model these guys as skimmers, but now paleontologists have thrown up their hands and accepted the fact that trying to picture these things flying around delicately plucking small fish from surface waters is a quick route to gibbering insanity, and posit that they stalked around like storks.
picture from Mark Witton and Darren Naish
They were big. Very big. How big are we talking about here? The following pic will give you an idea. Quetzacoatlus, Homo sapiens, and Giraffa camelopardalis to scale
Picture by Mark Witton, again, here
And that's just Quetzalcoatlus. Arambourgiania philidelphae and Hatzagopteryx thambema were even bigger. An estimated 12 - 14 metres from wingtip to wingtip. Even without that terrifying wingspan, they had the largest skulls of any land animal that we have any clue existed.
More of Witton's work - he's a pterosaur specialist at the University of Portsmouth, after all - here