Hatzegopteryx walking through forest

Hatzegopteryx

As flying animals go they don't get much bigger than Hatzegopteryx. It was a pterosaur of gigantic proportions, standing over five metres tall with a wingspan of at least ten metres. This would have made Hatzegopteryx one of, if not the, largest flying animal ever known. The robust skull was three metres long and among the largest of any non-marine animal.

The massive lower jaw was found to have a groove that would have allowed for an impressively wide gape. Hatzegopteryx's heavily built skull was in contrast to other pterosaur skulls that were made up of lightweight plates. The necessary reduction in weight being achieved by the skull bones internal structure. Hatzegopteryx would have been flying the skies 65 million years ago above what is now Europe.

Scientific name: Hatzegopteryx

Rank: Genus

Common names:

Hațeg basin wing

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Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web

When they lived

Discover the other animals and plants that lived during the following geological time periods.

Cretaceous period Cretaceous period
The Cretaceous ended with the most famous mass extinction in history - the one that killed the dinosaurs. Prior to that, it was a warm period with no ice caps at the poles.

What killed them

Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction
The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction - also known as the K/T extinction - is famed for the death of the dinosaurs. However, many other organisms perished at the end of the Cretaceous including the ammonites, many flowering plants and the last of the pterosaurs.

Classification

  1. Life
  2. Animals
  3. Vertebrates
  4. Reptiles
  5. Pterosaurs
  6. Azhdarchidae
  7. Hatzegopteryx

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