Flying Reptile The Size of A Small Airplane

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a New Zealand Herald article about a pterosaur that has been discovered to have an almost 18 meter wingspan. From the article: "A Spitfire has a wingspan of 11m and has to be powered by a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. Pterosaurs did it on a diet of fish and a superb ability to utilise air currents, thermals and ground effects. There is nothing close to pterosaurs alive today. Pterosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, they left no descendants and we don't know quite what their closest relative was."

closest relative?

[cperciva]

Pterosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, they left no descendants and we don't know quite what their closest relative was

I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that the closest relative to a Pterosaur would be another Pterosaur.

Either that, or a Spitfire.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

[iluvcapra]

Dinosaurs were big.

Re:Personally...

[demondawn]

"Who keeps Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the time travel under wraps? We do..."

I know one

[rasty]

Pterosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, they left no descendants and we don't know quite what their closest relative was

My mother in law.

Re:BREAKING NEWS!!!

[adtifyj]

... and we don't know very much about them. But look at this pretty picture I drew!!!

Messy

[Mostly a lurker]

Being under modern birds at the wrong moment can be bad enough. Can you imagine what being shat upon by one of these would be like?

you are all educated stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

this clearly contradicts the bible and can't possibly be true

Re:BREAKING NEWS!!!

[FidelCatsro]

I read an interesting article a number of years ago , the basic premise was a theory that all dinosaurs were roughly the size of chickens . The only reason the bones we discover now are so large is due to absorption .
Perhaps it was total bunkum , but an interesting theory non the less

Re:BREAKING NEWS!!!

[Wontsomebodypleaseth]

godzilla is a dinosur

Re:I for one

[ettlz]

I for one welcome our airplane sized reptile overlords

Idiot, they're extinct.

Re:BREAKING NEWS!!!

[ultranova]

I read an interesting article a number of years ago , the basic premise was a theory that all dinosaurs were roughly the size of chickens . The only reason the bones we discover now are so large is due to absorption .

No no no, that's not it ! The reason the bones we discover now are so large is that those chicken-sized dinosaurs really liked horror films with giant monster on them. All those fossil findings are just really old film shooting sites, where the cheapskate directors saved a penny by burying the garbage of the set onto the ground instead of properly disposing of it.

Well then let me be the first...

[ImaLamer]

I for one welcome our airplane sized extinct reptile overlords

So the closest relative

[jurt1235]

That would be a person hanging from a 18m span glider on a fish eating diet?

Re:Well duh

[GbrDead]

Yeah, but the evolution of planes is... intelligent design :-)

Re:What about performance?

[Hast]

No they are not fish powered, I hear then run on Petrosaurses. Very very dead ones.

Re:I may be wrong here

[mobby_6kl]

Yeah, they're like giant chicks [slashdot.org]

Sleeping in the future tents

[AndroidCat]

they left no descendants and we don't know quite what their closest relative was.

That's never stopped the "Bank of Nigeria" from sending me email about lost fortunes from unknown relatives before. Either that or the wife or daughter of the late President Pterosaur will be contacting me shortly.

Re:Personally...

[antifoidulus]

huge piece of spline

I found one, but it turned out just to be a piece of NURBS

Re:Messy

[Andy_R]

A Spitfire can drop a 500lb bomb. I think I just worked out why the article picked such a strange comparison...

Re:Well duh

[kelzer]

Yeah, but the evolution of planes is... intelligent design :-)

Unlike the evolution of automobiles [edmunds.com].

Close Enough For Comfort

[Doc Ruby]

"There is nothing close to pterosaurs alive today."

Best news I've heard all day.

Re:Stupid comparison

[Anne_Nonymous]

That's just silly talk, mister. The Gossamer Albatross has a wingspan of over 3 Libraries of Congress, stands taller than a Volkswagen, and can fly faster than nine football fields.

Re:I for one

[Mignon]

I for one welcome our airplane sized reptile overlords

Idiot, they're extinct.

I for one bid farewell to our extinct airplane sized reptile overlords.

Re:Here be dragons

[bigdavex]

How soon before bringing back dinosaurs from DNS for films is cheaper and more trilling for audiences than CGI?

Right, screw that server-side scripting to generate animated gifs of the dinosaurs. Programmers are expensive. Just put in a href="http://t-rex.dinosaurs.org" .

Pterrible Ptimes

[who's got my nicknam]

Imagine the pterror that other creatures must have felt when it came winging over the ptreetops. I would be ptrembling in my raptor-skin boots, for sure.

It's obvious why they died off...

[ericr]

Not enough statues large enough to perch on and crap all over.