What Was The Biggest Flying Animal Ever?

It's never too late to bet on Spinosaurus

I've said it once and I'll say it again: giant azhdarchids are perfect horror material. Just imagine seeing a giraffe-sized creature galloping towards you and trying to run from it, only for the creature to suddenly start flying after you

This is very much Quetzalcoatlus vs. Hatzegopteryx

Man arent azhdarchids just the coolest things ever?

It’s worthy to note that pterosaur wings are not the simple leathery membrane as in bats. Their wings are much, much more complex than that, and more akin to biological plane wings than membranes on bones. It was discovered that giant pterosaurs have thick wings which are highly vascular with complex air chambers connected to the bones. The bones themselves contain pneumatic channels which leads to their lungs. Not only that their wings were thicker and much more durable than just simple membranes, they could also adjust the shape and thickness of their wings in order to aid them better during flight. They had by far the most complex and optimized wing morphology and flight technique of all flying vertebrates. That’s why they could afford to evolve such a large size without sacrificing their capability of flight.

"cold dragon of the north winds" is the most metal dinosaur title ive ever heard

I gotta give props to Prehistoric Planet for getting me interested in Azhdarchids. Such a fascinating group of animals that I’d completely missed out on!

"Cold Dragon of the Northern Winds" - Azdharchids really have some of the most poetic names in modern palaeontology. 😊

Entomologists have the best sense of humour in the field of zoology if you ask me.

Imagine having a picnic in the park and one of these guys eclipses the sun for a split second. That'd be quite a jump scare.

In the 80s, Paul MacReady built a 1/2 scale Quetzalcoatlus model and flew it around. The Smithsonian created an IMAX film about it titled "On the Wing" and I recall it being in the Smithsonian collection when I was a kid. National Geographic did several stories about it. Even at half scale it was incredible and beautifully rendered! Sadly it is rarely mentioned today, and the documentary about it isnt even on YouTube from what I can see. In the 80s this kind of stuff felt really cutting edge... and while computers can model all kinds of details about an animal's behavior, and movies are fun to watch, they lack the physicality of a working model. It would be incredible to actually watch a full scale one flap around! Sigh. Also, great that Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong put a Pterosaur video up today too!

Imagine an azdarchid as tall as Quetzalcoatlus, but as robust and heavy as Hatzegopteryx.

17:51 The artist literally painted it like the Canadian Flag, complete with a Red Maple Leaf on it's back! 🤨

Titanopteryx is such a cool name for giraffe sized flying reptile only for it to turn out to be a name for fly

I should be noted that birds took over as big flying things only after pterosaurs went extinct, so bats getting bigger is probably hindered by birds already occupying those ecological niches where they have had much longer time to evolve to bigger sizes and therefore would outcompete big bats, so there is no room for bats to evolve to bigger sizes. Also all the really big ones have been carnivores. Biggest bat is herbivore. I suspect that would need to change in order to it getting bigger. Fruits just are not efficient enough food source for big active flyer. And then you have entirely new set of animals to compete with.

I like the fact that the largest Azhdarchids were toothless Pterasaurs, whilst the largest birds had 'teeth'. Both Archosaurs too, far surpassing mammals or insects in size on the land and in the air. We got the oceans though...unless those pesky Icthyosaurs take that from us haha.

I don't understand judging the largest Azdarkids by their wingspans. In science, when we talk about 'largest' creatures, we always mean mass. That's why T-rex is considered larger than Spinosaurus despite Spinosaurs being longer. Therefore, since Hatzegopterix is the heaviest Azdarkid, this means that it is the largest flying animal of all time that we know of thus far.

17:52 Of course the Canadian pterosaur is depicted with a big red maple leaf on its back.

At least the palaeontologists were allowed to actually rename it this time, instead of the entomologists swooping in and calling it 'big dumb lizard'.

I talked to a palaeontologist who specialised in the early evolution of birds and apparently flight or at least gliding evolved in dinosaurs 4 separate times. (2 of which were powered)