Quetzalcoatlus has a wingspan as long as a double-decker bus. It is the largest animal that has ever flown. But how he did it has always been a mystery.
For a long time, experts could not figure out how a giant dino with wings, reaching the height of a giraffe, managed to reach the sky. A team of researchers at the University of Texas think they’ve found the answer now.
Fifty years ago, a specimen of this type of dinosaur was found in Big Bend National Park, but not much research has been done on the bones until recently. The bones have now been thoroughly studied. By combining this knowledge with other discoveries, the researchers were able to collect an almost completely smaller specimen of the animal – a wingspan of 5 meters.
Both dinosaurs must have lived about 70 million years ago. The smaller species likely lived and hunted in flocks and the larger one alone, somewhat like a heron, near streams and rivers.
But how did the animal get into the air? Researchers believe the race would not have been successful. Then its wings touch the ground, or the surrounding bushes and trees. He must have succeeded thanks to his extremely strong legs. By doing so, he would have jumped about three meters into the air, and then released that massive 10-meter-wide wing into action.
Thanks to: Paleontologists discover how pterodactyls the size of a double-decker bus could fly†
Also nice: The mystery of the pterosaur and its ‘ridiculously long’ neck has finally been solved.†
