Word: pterosaurs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Lawson found exceeded his wildest hopes: fragments of huge wing bones imbedded in a sandstone outcropping in a remote part of the park. Now, after comparing the bones with the remains of similar creatures found elsewhere, Lawson has announced that they belong to a giant extinct flying reptile, or pterosaur (literally, winged lizard), with a wing span estimated to have been 51 ft. That would make it the largest known flying creature ever to inhabit the earth...
Poking through the fossil collection of The Netherlands' Teyler Museum in September, Yale Paleontologist John H. Ostrom spotted one musty specimen that looked odd to his trained eye. It was labeled pterosaur, a flying reptile that inhabited the earth from 65 to 200 million years ago. But when Ostrom held the fossil to the light, he saw the distinctly unreptilian impression of a feather. "My heartbeat began going up fast," recalls Ostrom, who quickly recognized that the specimen was not a pterosaur at all. It was, in fact, a far rarer prehistoric aviator: an Archaeopteryx (literally "ancient wing...