Where are Quetzalcoatlus fossils found?
Texas
Fossils of Quetzalcoatlus have been found in Texas and Montana. Large Quetzalcoatlus had wingspans of roughly 33 to 36 feet, comparable in size to a small aircraft.
What did the Quetzalcoatlus evolve into?
pterosaur
As tall as a giraffe, the biggest Quetzalcoatlus species were also the largest of all flying creatures. They were the ultimate in pterosaur evolution. The pterosaurs or flying reptiles produced some of the largest flying creatures ever known.
What did Quetzalcoatlus look like?
The answer: sort of like a cross between a giraffe and a stork, though with all of this being over-ridden by uniquely pterosaurian weirdness; membranous wings supported by giant fingers, a large cranial crest, plantigrade feet, and so on.
Is Quetzalcoatlus carnivorous?
Quetzalcoatlus lived during the late Cretaceous period and died out about 65 million years ago, during the K-T mass extinction. Quetzalcoatlus was a carnivore, probably skimming the water to find prey.
What habitat did the Quetzalcoatlus live in?
Quetzalcoatlus northropi remains have been mostly found in mainland Texas in places such as Big Bend National Park in the Southwestern part of Texas (Kellner and Langston, 1996).
What is the meaning of Quetzalcoatlus?
Quetzalcoatlus is a member of the family Azhdarchidae, a family of advanced toothless pterosaurs with unusually long, stiffened necks. Its name comes from the Aztec feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, in Nahuatl. The type and only species is Q. northropi.
How did the Quetzalcoatlus go extinct?
Quetzalcoatlus lived during the late Cretaceous period and died out about 65 million years ago, during the K-T mass extinction. Quetzalcoatlus was a carnivore, probably skimming the water to find prey. It probably hunted its prey by gliding toward the water and swooping up its meals.
What period did the Quetzalcoatlus live in?
72.1 million years ago – 66 million years ago (Maastrichtian)
Quetzalcoatlus/Lived
Why is a pterodactyl not a dinosaur?
Because they flew and their front limbs stretch out to the sides, they are not dinosaurs. Pterosaurs lived from the late Triassic Period to the end of the Cretaceous Period, when they went extinct along with dinosaurs. Pterosaurs were carnivores, feeding mostly on fish and small animals.
Where was the first Quetzalcoatlus fossil ever found?
The first Quetzalcoatlus fossils were discovered in Texas, United States, from the Maastrichtian Javelina Formation at Big Bend National Park (dated to around 68 million years ago) in 1971 by Douglas A. Lawson, a geology graduate student from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.
How big was Quetzalcoatlus the pterosaur in feet?
One pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus, from the latest Cretaceous of what is now Texas (U.S.), had a wingspan of about 15 metres (49 feet). Birds developed from a reptilian ancestor during the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Hesperornis was a Cretaceous genus of flightless diving bird that had large feet and…
How big was the Quetzalcoatlus in Big Bend?
Dr. Langston continued to search for and study Big Bend fossils and eventually found other specimens of Quetzalcoatlus in another part of the park. Although these specimens were smaller than the original, they were more complete and had a very impressive wingspan of at least 18 feet.
How did Quetzalcoatlus northropi get its name?
That same year, in a subsequent letter to the same journal, he made the original large specimen, TMM 41450-3, the holotype of a new genus and species, Quetzalcoatlus northropi. The genus name refers to the Aztec feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl. The specific name honors John Knudsen Northrop, the founder of Northrop,…