Look up! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a Quetzalcoatlus!
This week at the Royal Tyrrell Musuem’s Speaker Series presentation, Michael Habib, a professor of biology at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, will talk about some of the largest creatures to have ever taken to the air.
Pterosaurs (TAIR-oh-sores), often erroneously called “flying dinosaurs” or mistaken as birds, are a group of flying reptiles that lived from the late Triassic period, well before the earliest birds, to the end of the age of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
During their long history, some species of pterosaurs grew to gigantic proportions. For example, the largest species are estimated to be 500 lbs and had wingspans rivaling that of small planes (12 metres).
Habib has studied the skeletons of pterosaurs to determine how the animals succeeded in becoming masters of the Mesozoic skies.
The results of that research suggest that pterosaurs walked on all fours (rather than two for birds) and used their hands to launch themselves off of the ground. This explains how pterosaurs were able to reach gigantic sizes compared to birds and suggests that the lifestyle of birds and pterosaurs was considerably different.
Several species of pterosaurs are known from the Alberta badlands, though due to the delicate nature of their hollow bones, few fossils have been found. One species from Dinosaur Provincial Park may have had a wingspan of 13 metres.
The talk starts tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. in the Tyrrell Museum auditorium and is free to attend. For more information about the Speaker Series, visit www.tyrrellmuseum.com.