Quetzalcoatlus

 

When I first read about quetzalcoatlus as a child in the seventies, I was amazed. I'd always thought that pteranodon was the largest pterosaur that ever lived. That's what all the books said. But this creature, discovered in the Big Bedn region of south Texas, was twice that huge!. Pteranodon was 25 feet wingspread, but this one was 50 feet. Twice the record! Actually, over time, the size of quetzalcoatlus was scaled down to about 35 feet, only ten feet larger. But who knows, especially large specimens could have achieved 50. And it was still the size of a small airplane. 

          When first uncovered the bones were believed to belong to a large dinosaur. But their hollowness suggested a super-pterosaur instead! Back then, it had not been officially named, and only went by the name "Texas Pterosaur." And the skull had not been yet uncovered. But it had a long neck, and was believed to be a giant scavenger. It turns out, this was correct, but there was speculation as to just what it looked like. Some of my favorite books at the time offered speculation. The following is from a kids book, drown by Robert Orr, one that I never found on sale back then, but sometimes was able to find at the South Bend library kids' section: 

I LOVED this picture, my fave in the book! Squabbling over a tyrannosaurus kill like a flock of modern buzzards, with the kill's owner coming to reclaim it! I remember drawing quetzalcoatlus, always coloring it purple, once showing one at a kill, another enraged rex in the background!  It also offered a unique take on how such a large pterosaur actually flew. It was so light that even the slightest breeze could have borne it aloft, like a gigantic butterfly! No manner of flight had ever evolved in any vertebrate, before or since

Of course, we've a much better understanding of pterosaur flight these days. For one thing, we're certain they launched themselves into flight by their front feet. 

The comic book Turok Son of Stone, still going strong in the late seventies, seemed to keep pace with the scientific discoveries of the time, and did an issue featuring quetzalcoatlus. Turok and Andar come upon a flying honker--but twice the size of any flying honker they'd ever seen. Andar gets captured by one, but is released when the two beasts are fighting. He only survives by falling into a lake. The pterosaurs are here depicted as sporting huge crests the same as pteranodon. 

Below is another illustration from that time, in Last of the Dinosaurs, a "coloring book" featruing very intricate black and white artwork often found in museums, where I got my copy. There was also a companion book, called the New Dinosaurs, from great recent discoveries. It also featured the Texas Pterosaur, with its fifty-foot wide wings. This picture is fairly accurate as to what the creature's head actually looked like. 

• Today, we know a good bit more about how it looked and flew, and here are few pics from the current displays at Chicago's Field Museum:

I was amazed to see these on my latest venture there, of course. And I was even more amazed to find THIS in a mold-rama-machine right next to the life-sized model:

So of course, I had to have this!