An artist's impression of a Cryodrakon boreas, a newly discovered species of pterosaur. Photo: AFP
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https://scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3026648/scientists-identify-largest-flying-animal-history United States & Canada
Scientists identify the largest flying animal in history: a plane-size reptile dubbed the ‘frozen dragon of the north wind’
- New species of pterosaur, a flying reptile, has been identified in the vast, dry terrain of Canada’s badlands
The carnivorous animal lived in what is now the Canadian province of Alberta during the Cretaceous period about 77 million years ago. Photo: AFP
Scientists have unveiled a new species pterosaur, the plane-sized reptiles that lorded over primeval skies above T-rex, Triceratops and other dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous.
With a wingspan of 10 metres and weighing 250kg, Cryodrakon boreas rivals another pterosaur as the largest flying animal of all time, researchers reported in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
In Greek, its name literally translates to “Frozen dragon of the north wind”.
The discovery may sound like something out of Westeros, but Game of Thrones fans shouldn’t get too excited: according to researchers, Cryodrakon looked less like Daenerys Targaryen’s fire-breathing dragons than it did a giraffe-size, reptilian stork.
“This is a cool discovery,” said David Hone, lead author of the study and a researcher at Queen Mary University in London.
“It is great that we can identify Cryodrakon as being distinct from Quetzalcoatlus,” the other giant pterosaur for which it was initially mistaken, he said in a statement.
C. boreas was hiding in plain sight.
Its remains were first discovered more than 30 years ago in Alberta, Canada, yet elicited scant excitement because of the misclassification.
Researchers said that while the pterosaur’s new name was more inspired by Alberta’s frigid landscape than it was by Game of Thrones, they were aware that it might elicit some comparisons.
“Yes, we had a good, personal chuckle about that,” said Michael Habib, a palaeontologist at the University of Southern California and a fan of the show.
Like other winged reptiles living at the same time, about 77 million years ago, C. boreas was carnivorous and probably fed on lizards, small mammals and even baby dinosaurs.
Despite a likely capacity to cross large bodies of water, the location of fossil remains and the animal’s features point to an inland habitat, Hone said.
There are more than 100 known species of pterosaurs.
Despite their large size and wide distribution – across North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe – only fragmentary remains have been unearthed, making the new find especially important.
Additional reporting by The Washington Post