10 Largest Flying Prehistoric Animals

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Published 2022-03-31
The 10 Biggest and Largest Flying Dinosaurs, the Pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were actually not dinosaurs. Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the extinct clade or order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

There were two major types of pterosaurs. Basal pterosaurs (also called 'non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs' or 'rhamphorhynchoids') were smaller animals with fully toothed jaws and, typically, long tails. Their wide wing membranes probably included and connected the hind legs. On the ground, they would have had an awkward sprawling posture, but their joint anatomy and strong claws would have made them effective climbers, and they may have lived in trees. Basal pterosaurs were insectivores or predators of small vertebrates. Later pterosaurs (pterodactyloids) evolved in many sizes, shapes, and lifestyles. Pterodactyloids had narrower wings with free hind limbs, highly reduced tails, and long necks with large heads. On the ground, pterodactyloids walked well on all four limbs with an upright posture, standing plantigrade on the hind feet and folding the wing finger upward to walk on the three-fingered "hand". They could take off from the ground, and fossil trackways show at least some species were able to run and wade or swim. Their jaws had horny beaks, and some groups lacked teeth. Some groups developed elaborate head crests with sexual dimorphism.

All Comments (21)
  • @vh4-rr545
    Hatzegopteryx is the largest when it comes to overall mass Quetzalcoatlus looks larger becuase of it's taller, thinner, and longer stature. So in appearance, Quetzalcoatlus is the larger one, but when it comes to weight and overall mass, Hatzegopteryx takes it It's like saying Spinosaurus is larger than Tyrannosaurus because of its longer stature and its sail. But in reality, Tyrannosaurus is the actual larger one because of weight and overall mass.
  • @szodoss7764
    Hatzegopteryx was the most robust, and the heaviest.
  • @suricata1993
    Not bigger than a T Rex and definitely not weighting 1 ton… 1 ton makes it unfit to fly! Such bs
  • @CRAZYFUNBOOM
    1 ton?? The maximum weight that it could acquire would be around 250 to 300 Kg.
  • The largest flying dinosaur was Quetzalcoatlus. They was 550 cm (18'0.5") tall and 300 kg (661 lbs) weigh (their height and weight was equal giraffe) In addition, Quetzalcoatlus's length of wingspan was 1100 cm (36'1") 😱😱😱
  • Pretty sure quetzal was taller then a Hatze, hazte is only bigger by mass, while the quetzal is larger by height, and by wingspan, the thing that people don’t understand is that the quetzal is taller and wider while the Hatze is just bigger by mass!
  • Other fact (my version): the smallest pterosaur had a wingspan of 25 cm or less than the Queen Alexandra's Butterfly which had a wingspan of 28 cm
  • @joery969
    Not that its super important, because this video and these facts are awesome! But the size estimates of some of the biggest pterosaurs are still contested and new studies and findings change them all the time. For example, the max wingspan of Arambourgiania mentioned here is 13 m, after a study by Frey and Martill from the late 90s. However, other researches later put this into question and stated the max wingspan more likely was around 7 m. Then in 2010, Mark Witton and Michael Habib argued that a 7 m wingspan is an underestimate, while a 13 m wingspan is an overestimate. In 2022, Gregory S. Paul proposed that Arambourgiania had a wingspan of 9 m. As you can see the estimates are all over the place, because research and debate are ongoing. But whatever the exact size was, they must have been very impressive and amazing animals!
  • Did someone else write the timestamps in the description? The names there don’t match with most of the names in the video.
  • Before people say some shit against me, new studies show that Arambourgiana was a quite smaller than quetzalcoatlus, having 8 to 9 meters (some people say 10) while quetzal could have 11 to 15.9 meters. To see real quetzalcoatlus you need to search a little bit. Edit: i said that he could have 15 meter, but in reality it was 15.9
  • Technically, hatze is bigger because it has more mass, and size is measured in mass, not height.
  • 4:00 these pterosaurs i think would be omnivores they could easily eat leaves from the top of trees and use their pointy beaks to catch fish like herons
  • @felix25ize
    At a Cretaceous Mac Dino, was it possible to ask for a little wrap of Arambourgiania ? Or may be a chickenosaur burger ?