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Palaeontology

Giant flying dinosaur fossil found

By T.K. Randall
May 11, 2010 · Comment icon 15 comments

Image Credit: Mark Witton, Darren Naish
The fossil from a massive 9ft flying dinosaur with 100 razor sharp teeth has been found on a building site.
The new find named Aetodactylus halli is thought to have dominated the prehistoric skies some 95 million years ago and is one of the youngest examples of the pterosaur family of dinosaurs.
A 14 inch long lower jaw belonging to one of the reptiles was found by an amateur fossil hunter. Two of its teeth were still present and experts were able to analyse it and produce an artists impression of what the beast looked like.


Source: Telegraph | Comments (15)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #6 Posted by Saru 14 years ago
The artist's impression we've used for this one on the main page actually shows a different species of pterosaur so it wouldn't look exactly like that or be quite that large - unfortunately as this is a newly discovered species there are no fossil images or artwork of an Aetodactylus halli to use ( or at least none that isn't copyrighted ). So yeah its big but its not that big.
Comment icon #7 Posted by Mattshark 14 years ago
Oh really? Typical example of how narcissistic some scientists can be. "May have looked" would have been a better choice considering they only had a portion of a jaw to work with. If it was in fact that big, it could likely lift about 120lbs. Lets clone that one from DNA! We could train them to fight as part of the Air Force. It is a media article, nothing to do with the scientists, hence it calls them dinosaurs and not flying reptiles.
Comment icon #8 Posted by Mattshark 14 years ago
the largest terrior bird was able to fly too. i dont think any of the others were. this terrior bird was also the size of a small plane. None of the terror birds could fly, you are thinking of Teratornis spp., which are related to storks, herons and egrets etc. They are very different to terror birds however.
Comment icon #9 Posted by queen.overthink 14 years ago
None of the terror birds could fly, you are thinking of Teratornis spp., which are related to storks, herons and egrets etc. They are very different to terror birds however. Yeah well flying bird dinosaur thing is good enough for most people, accuracy is rarely an issue
Comment icon #10 Posted by Astute One 14 years ago
Oh really? Typical example of how narcissistic some scientists can be. "May have looked" would have been a better choice considering they only had a portion of a jaw to work with. If it was in fact that big, it could likely lift about 120lbs. Lets clone that one from DNA! We could train them to fight as part of the Air Force. I thought the mexicans already have them flying in the mexican air force. We see them all the time on Padre Island. Some call them pelicans.
Comment icon #11 Posted by danielost 14 years ago
None of the terror birds could fly, you are thinking of Teratornis spp., which are related to storks, herons and egrets etc. They are very different to terror birds however. Argentavis magnificens http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1906724/ ok not sure if it was a terror bird but it wasnt a stork. but the skull looks like a terror bird's http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=An%20external%20file%20that%20holds%20a%20picture%2C%20illustration%2C%20etc.%0AObject%20name%20is%20zpq0270768430001.jpg%20%5BObject%20name%20is%20zpq02707684300... [More]
Comment icon #12 Posted by ROGER 14 years ago
An artist's rendering of what the Aetodactylus halli might have looked like. Illustration by Karen Carr From: www.google.com
Comment icon #13 Posted by Mattshark 14 years ago
Argentavis magnificens http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1906724/ ok not sure if it was a terror bird but it wasnt a stork. but the skull looks like a terror bird's http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=An%20external%20file%20that%20holds%20a%20picture%2C%20illustration%2C%20etc.%0AObject%20name%20is%20zpq0270768430001.jpg%20%5BObject%20name%20is%20zpq0270768430001.jpg%5D&p=PMC3&id=1941481_zpq0270768430001.jpg todays largest flying birds are the andian condor followed closely by the california condor. both with wing spans of ... [More]
Comment icon #14 Posted by danielost 14 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratornithidae Sorry, but same group as the storks, as are all new world vultures. Since they are meat eaters like many many storks it is not surprising. Not closely related to the terrorbirds at all. Teratorn's forgave me terrorbird. teratorn. almost the same to me. you finally won one.
Comment icon #15 Posted by Abramelin 14 years ago
Teratorn's forgave me terrorbird. teratorn. almost the same to me. you finally won one. Not quite the same... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacidae


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