ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2012) — It weighed about 155 pounds and had a 34-foot wingspan, close to the size of an F-16 fighter jet. A five-foot-long skull looked down from a standing height similar to that of a modern giraffe. By all measures, the ancient pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus was a Texas-sized giant of the air and created a frightening shadow as it soared across the sky.
It pushed the very boundaries of size to the brink, considered the largest flying animal yet to be discovered. Any larger, and it would have had to walk. But its bulk caused researchers to wonder how such a heavy animal with relatively flimsy wings became airborne.
Sankar Chatterjee, Horn Professor of Geosciences and curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University, will describe the flight dynamics of this animal on November 7 during the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Charlotte, N.C.
Using a computer simulation, Chatterjee and his colleagues unraveled the secrets of the flight for the massive pterosaur, discovered in the Big Bend area of Texas, which has captured the imagination of paleontologists and public so profoundly.
Read on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121107132103.htm
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