What Was The Biggest Flying Animal Ever?
Million of years ago the largest animals that ever took to the skies lived alongside the dinosaurs. These were the azhdarchid pterosaurs, including Quetzalcoatlus, Hatzegopteryx, Arambourgiania, Cryodrakon and more!
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0:00 - Introduction
1:10 - Azhdarchid research history
5:17 - Azhdarchid anatomy
14:34 - Azhdarchid size estimates
20:23 - Dracula the pterosaur
23:47 - Azhdarchid mass estimates
26:12 - The largest flying bird?
28:06 - The largest bat?
30:00 - The largest flying insect?
31:11 - Prehistoric animal models! (WONDER Artistic Models)
It's never too late to bet on Spinosaurus
The sail was used for sailing winds in the sky
@@dan_asd they spun around like crazy and basically flew like a helicopter using their sail and tail. Truly a majestic miracle of nature.
No they used fart propulsion
Probably way too heavy.
@@jensphiliphohmann1876 You may think that, but because of the extremely efficient muscle structure recently reconstructed by scientists we know that Spinosaurs could in fact lift their weight into the air.
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
They would also easily outrun you as well making flying not even needed. The main reason to fear them would be that humans would snack sized.
I was thinking along similar lines. Put them in the next Jurassic Park movie!
Hatzegopteryx’s head is about the same length as a large bull shark. And its neck suggests that it was well-constructed for trashing and ripping.
@@grahamstrouse1165 nah it's still going to swallow prey whole. Beaks are rather weak compared to teeth and jaws, let alone beaks that lightly built
Mate, if you have ever read Primitive War, those pterosaurs are terrifying. Took out a whole platoon without being hit and killed a bunch of Karposuchus. Trust me those things wouldn't just be an antagonist they would be terrifying.
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.
Quite interesting, but that was not the only reason. It was touched on in the video, but the key feature of using the same muscle groups for land locomotion and flight makes them scale up in size better then birds.
This is a great set of details to think about and consider. Fossils give us so much but I also wish we weren't so limited due to the fossil record
Bat wings are not just "simple leathery membranes". They are very flexible and full of muscle fibers which gives bats aerial manoeuverability unmatched by birds. Bats have reduced their weight by having very little muscle in the legs. They can't stand, so rest hanging upside down, and launch by flapping then letting go with their feet. The main thing that keeps bats small is probably the mammalian respiratory system that is inferior to the one way system with air sacs in every place possible that works so well for birds, and for dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
@@b.a.erlebacher1139Pterosaurs got really lucky in that they combined the advantages of birds (extremely efficient respiration and weight savings thanks to being heavily pneumatized) and bats (quadrupedal launch, more effective control over flight surface due to wings being composed of thin sheets of muscle, though bats took this even further by also using their finger joints), lacking the disadvantages of either.
While they did have pneumatized bones in their arms, they were not connected to the overall repiratory system.
This is very much Quetzalcoatlus vs. Hatzegopteryx
Po
Long live the feathered serpent!
Hatz' wins ez though.
Indeed it is, both Pterosaurs are almost the same size.
What about Arambourgiania?
"Cold Dragon of the Northern Winds" - Azdharchids really have some of the most poetic names in modern palaeontology. 😊
That said, to my mind Thanatosdrakon is just trying a bit too hard 😅
There has to be a metal album out There with that title lol, fits perfectly!
@@nyeti7759Tell the DEATHDRAGON that while it’s chasing you! Either “the Azdharchids” or “Thanatosdrakon” would be epic metal band names!
Hatzegopteryx thambena means “monstrous wing of Hateg”, too.
Man arent azhdarchids just the coolest things ever?
It's absurd how this statement is based entirely on opinion and yet is borderline infallible
Yes
this needs to be the one thing wholly agreed upon by every human alive
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 north winds" is the most metal dinosaur title ive ever heard
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 KZhead 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!
They also filmed it for David Attenborough’s ‘Lost World Vanished Lives’, if that helps your search!
@@20thCenturyMeerkat for some reason YT wont let me respond. Grrr. Thank you! I found it about thirty mins into the second episode called Putting Flesh on Bone. Very cool.
I remember that. If I recall correctly it was when so many were saying that they couldn't have been able to fly. I even remember as a kid being told things like pterosaurs went extinct because they could only take to the air by jumping off cliffs. Utterly ridiculous, of course.
And I love Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong.
@@WaterShowsProd I mean, theres someone arguing that in these comments. Sigh.
Entomologists have the best sense of humour in the field of zoology if you ask me.
What about the dude that named something crocodile crocodile?
@@Crembaw he was on cracks when he thought of sebecosuchia
See again the spider species Han solo
I have a few... Phthiria relativitae (Pronounced Theory o' relativity), a fly, Agra vation (beetle, plenty in that genus), the fly genus Pieza (has Pieza kake, Pieza pi, Pieza rhea, and Pieza dereistans), the beetles named Binburrum zapdos, B. moltres, and B. articuno, the wasp Aha ha, or A. ha, Ba humbugi (snail), Colon forceps (beetle, plenty more in that genus too), Eubetia bigaulae ( pronounced You betcha', by golly, moth), and last one for now, Hakuna matata (wasp)
I know an entomologist couple, and the husband named a spider species after his wife. (The wife was very much flattered, btw.)
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.
More then a scare as you would be likely to end up as the snack of someone else's picnic.
And then YOU become the picnic
@@GandalfTheTsaaganIf they have had as thin necks as in the pictures, not likely since you wouldn't even go past the throat. Of course getting pecked all the way to the conclusion of your existence is always an option.
Imagine an azdarchid as tall as Quetzalcoatlus, but as robust and heavy as Hatzegopteryx.
Please no I am already afraid enough.
That's just... Fr just Hatzegopteryx Cause both are pretty much the same size, just that Hatzegopteryx is much MUCH more robust
@@richie_0740 Last time I checked, Quetzal was taller but lighter, while Hatz was shorter yet more robust.
@@beastmaster0934 only a slightly shorter yet more robust neck, but else it's the same size in anatomy, hatz was the heavier one with more powerful beak
17:51 The artist literally painted it like the Canadian Flag, complete with a Red Maple Leaf on it's back! 🤨
Looks really cool
Yup, a real Canadian pterosaur!
Fossil-fighters-ass looking design 😂
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.
Imagine terrorbird sized flightless bats 😲
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.
"32 meter long Mosasaur discovered" Can you imagine?
Titanopteryx is such a cool name for giraffe sized flying reptile only for it to turn out to be a name for fly
17:52 Of course the Canadian pterosaur is depicted with a big red maple leaf on its back.
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)
So the neural tube in the middle of the vertebra is insanely cool.
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.
it is kinda difficult to say because things such as cryodrakon might have been larger than both and the avg weight of hatzeg and quetz is pretty much the same
tnx for this amazing video essey! I'd love to see a more detailed one about giant birds, flying and flightless! 🤗
At least the palaeontologists were allowed to actually rename it this time, instead of the entomologists swooping in and calling it 'big dumb lizard'.
Not "dumb" but "dead": Megapnosaurus ("bid dead lizard") had originally been named _Syntarsus_ which had already been given to a beatle, and _Megapnosaurus_ as a name was supposedly a joke.
@@jensphiliphohmann1876 It had been a couple of years since I'd looked at the story... I was *close* at least.
Pterosaurs are my favourite not-dinosaurs. My cockatoo, Angel, is my favourite dinosaur!
i love that these guys are just like. theyre just dragons. dragons are real and theyre just dinosaurs they dont breathe fire but they could and would Eat You (and probably be ridden?)
Excellent video. I’m I’ve been super curious about these crazy fellas for years now. They’re quickly becoming my favorite type of prehistoric monater
This is going to be an excellent video; I can already tell! I look forward to sitting down and watching the full thing when I get a chance. Edit: I realized the video has accurate subtitling and so was able to watch it right after I left this comment, and I was correct, it was a great video! Very interesting and informative. Thank you to the Ben G Thomas team for having one of the best paleo-education channels out there!
I love this video, things that fly just take my breath away. I would love to see an Azhdarchid in real life, from a safe distance!!! One small correction, the most recent DNA analysis found that the Teratorns and the rest of the New World Vultures are actually the most basal family of Accipitrimorphae rather than relatives of storks. Dinosaurs science is dinosaur science I guess.
Great video. Very interesting. It is quite impressive how you so easily and effortlessly pronounce such long and difficult words so quickly.
My favorite animals ever! Thank you for this video!
Oh this is easy its the The Bee Hummingbird.
I find fascinating how little we know about the world... I wish I could travel in time to actually see how these things actually looked like
Thanatosdrakon has the best name, this dragon of death was awesome!
Amazing creatures, thanks.
The amount of scientific names already taken by entomologists really must make other ecologists and paleontologists shake their fists at them 😂
Majestic work
Salute from Utah paleontology museum where I volunteer. Thanks Ben.
Great episode
Birds are wicked things. A racing pigeon was clocked at an average of 90 mph ... for over 400 miles? The Peregrine falcon has been clocked at 240 mph. The fastest animal in the world was sitting on my hedge the other day. Wow.
Thanks for the insights Ben. I Hope are you having great day if you read this and if not, I hope it gets better soon.
Great video
Biggest flying thing ever? That would be my grandmas chancla flying into my face
Interesting how they made the one from Canada look like a Canadian flag.
Quetzalcoatlus is so cool, its neck is _tubular_ and its proportions are _radical_
If they were flightless, why would they have giant wing fingers? You'd expect that to disappear very quickly in evolutionary time.
Wing cost too many evolutionary points. Once they lose their function they become vestigial, or are transformed into something else. I agree with you. Big flying lizards were not flightless.
Even ignoring volaticotheres powered flight evolved several times among dinosaurs like Microraptor, Rahonavis and seemingly Caudipteryx (which evolved from flying ancestors). So flight evolved multiple times
Fascinating Animals!
Here in Bangkok I often see flying foxes, both small species and larger ones-though not quite as large as the one found in The Philippines. The big ones are truly magnificent to see flying around.
Smthn interesting is I have a scifi story from 2009 that basically says in the story that pterosaurs- esp giant pterosaurs- could only get aloft with a midday thermal or headwind. It's amazing how our understanding of these ancient creatures has increased in only about a decade. I look forward to what the future holds
Eyyy! Greetings from the Philippines! We got those gigantic flying foxes here in my place. They eat the ripest of our mangoes. You'll see big fruits that are half eaten on the ground, which is their calling card.
Love your shirt
So, the wingspan of a private jet. Wow
Vertebrate flight arose at least 4 times that we know of. Sharovipterygidae was another, earlier, clade of flying reptile, unrelated to the later flying reptiles like pterosaurids.
I don't understand 75% of what you say as I don't know much Latin or dinosaur names, but your voice makes these videos great to sleep to. Thanks :)
how do you get to the books behind the fossils on the shelf?
Maybe one day WonderArtisticModels will make an Ichthyosaur!
I suspect that the Earth’s atmosphere was slightly thicker, the climate was warmer and land being mostly together in one hemisphere led to strong coastal winds meaning that large flying animals could use the winds to fly.
Honestly, it's good that there are no dragons on this planet. Imagine this going after you, but in addition to the wings it also has four clawed limbs and can breathe fire.
I know from a size disparity sheet that it mentions a specimen called the Merignon Azhdarchid. Is there any more information behind it?
Same with a forgotten Google or Excel spreadsheet that mentioned various undescribed azhdarchid specimens.
Those things would be pretty scary to meet in real life, they could swallow most people whole
It fascinates me to no end that excluding insects........you can mimic all the other flyers bones that they use with your own human hand. Those three are distinctly different too.
@Ben G Thomas I remember watching you guys when you had a small channel, it has been a pleasure watching you grow. I am absolutely loving the long ones. At 50 I am learning so much still, thank you so much. Btw, in October, NASA will finally send the ship to Europa to test for the chemicals which will identify if there are signs of life! It’s about time, it’s been delayed for so many years. Too bad they won’t go to Enceladus but that’s okay because if there are signs of life through chemical readings, regardless of the fact it will be microbial, it’s still life! To find life in our own solar system will be huge, they believe there may be life in many places in our solar system. That means if life has started at least 3 times now (mars) that it wasn’t just a random thing to happen to only us. I know aliens but this should sway a few more people and an amazing discovery. If not, let’s go check Enceladus.
Can't wait for video games to add Dracula and other azdarchids
Boy this chap knows his stuff!
Chile mentioned? La weá weona
Still blows my mind that *75% of terrestrial animals fly or descend from flying ancestors.* It means flight is the _default_ ability on land.
Really, it's more like _bugs_ are the default type of animal. It's simply more efficient to be small and numerous, so of course insects make up the majority of complex animals on land. It's only because of them that larger, more complex and power-hungry animals could form.
I am curious what the maximum size of birds during the mesozoic was, as it may simply be niche partitioning keeping bats smaller at present.
Cryodrakon Boraes is the coolest name even
5:55. Oh yeah Ben, whisper that in my ear. 😉
The answers I look for are more in where and how the flight muscles attach to the central body. I see a broad breast plate, but the angle looks wrong for large muscle attachment (as opposed to the keel found in the chest of birds)
I believe the wings were actually for cooling down and for attracting fish to the shade of their wings, in order to catch them, which would also explain their long neck to catch fish before they could get away. That's what herons and egrets do, plus their bills are shaped the same as these things.
Evolution is so interesting, it's absolutely crazy that the largest animal capable of powered flight has basically converged on the body plan of a GIRAFFE, it makes absolutely no sense and I absolutely love it 😂
1:09 DID YOU JUST SAY ROMANIAN?!!?! HE SAID ROMANIAN WOOOOOOOOOO
Omfg I didn’t notice the toucan shirt first but the similarity in the beak is inspiring to say the least.
Chile represent with those beautiful 3D models 💪
I could be mistaken, but with the increased oxygen in the atmosphere in the Cretaceous, wouldn’t the air also be denser, meaning comparisons to bird flight aren’t appropriate? Pterosaurs probably could generate lift very quickly, especially launching near sea level.
lol i met ibrahim at the why dinosaurs premier in hollywood, nice to see a familiar face
29:17 Couldn't it just be as mammals don't have bones that are nearly as hollow like birds or pterosaurs
Alfred hitchcock the birds reimagined with Griffinflies and me screeching
Battle of the Azdarchids
He really said those bugs would be marvelous animals to see in life
Never have I stopped a video before in order to hectically go to a wood puzzle site and buy dinosaur skeletons. Well, there's a first time for everything I guess!
It should be mentioned that air density was 3 times higher back then allowing for much greater lift and non of them would be able to fly in todays atmosphere. If we still had 3 times the air density we would likely have similar sized birds now as larger wings are more efficient.
There are "theories", but I've searched around and there isn't really any credible evidence for that. Sure, the atmosphere could've been a bit thicker or thinner but not significantly so. I mean where would the extra atmosphere have come from? Sure, you could add a lot of water vapor, but then the Earth would have to be so hot it could barely have any life on it. And it just wasn't that hot in cretaceous. Hasn't been for billions of years. CO2 from volcanos and such don't add anything significant next to the entire atmosphere either, we're still just talking parts per million. Also, can't really compare pterosaurs to birds since they had different morphology and there's nothing like them alive today.
@@mhdfrb9971 There is credible evidence and science papers on Air pressure during the Jurassic. "Atmospheric Pressure at the Time of Dinosaurs" Chemical Engineering Department Oregon State University
3 times thicker? No, that's simply preposterous. It could have been denser, but not by _3 times._
somehow i read the title as "what is the most funny animal ever" and i don't think the answer even changed
First :) Thanks for being a great youtuber man I get alot of my dino knowledge from you lol>
any time i feel like a nerd i'll just watch this for ten seconds again
Thank you for teaching us how to pronounce these things.
Peggy hill.
Sail planes with 15-20 m wingspans have stall speed around 60 kph with max takeoff weights up to 800 kgs. Paragliders stall speed is 25 kph with take-off weights 120 kgs. Wind gradient above surface means 10 m above ground wind speed might be double that compared to ground. A rearing aztarchid can probably get its wing tips near that high. In weaker winds it could just take a few running steps, use stored elastic energy and fast twitch muscle contraction to jump off the ground. Pterosaur wing surface area increases squared (I guess somewhat less) compared to wing span. Pterosaurs certainly were capable of higher performance than even the best glider aircraft today, probably beating paragliders. If they lived in coastal areas, e.g. islands, windy conditions were usually present. I think we can make a safe assumption that there is no definite upper limit to aztarchid size in terms of flight capability, and limits were set by other factors, namely metabolic requirements or possibly over heating due to high wing surface area catching sun, which might be one reason favoring horizontally thin body shapes and narrow wings. Should be noted that pterosaur "fur" would help insulate the wings. If there were air sacs inside the wings, air in them would expand when heated, helping to form a perfect wing shape and creating a supporting structure (think like a balloon animal), decreasing need for slow twitch flying muscles - enabling more fast twitch "launch" muscles.
you know, i wish we had more megafauna. i so desperately want to see airplane sized creatures still flying in the sky.
So quetz is that one kid that was just abnormally tall, and hatz was the kid who was tall AND chonky
Ejderha means "dragon" in Turkey, Iran etc. Azhdarkho = Ejderha
25:09 That was one of the mini-tyrannosaur species that dwarfed in front of it, or a completely different species? Very impressive drawing.
Its a juvenile.
@@rileyernst9086 I recall from one of the previous episodes that full-grown mini-tyrannosaurs looked like a normal full-grown tyrannosaur, while juvenile normal tyrannosaurs have their legs outgrow the rest of their body, ratiowise they stand a lot higher on their legs than full-grown ones. From that I concluded it was a mini-tyrannosaur.
Be that as it may, I regularly visit Mark Witton's blog, where he reguaprly posts his paleo art from the caption under the post of this picture saying that its a juvenile tyrannosaur I draw my conclusion
@@rileyernst9086 Good to know what the intentions were of that artist, thanks for checking it out.
- What was the biggest flying animal ever? - yo mama
Gods greatest joke was making a flying carnivorous giraffe
Wow. Good job Ben and Co. What amazing animals.
What about Ornithocairus? In _Walking With Dinosaurs,_ they suggested a wing span up to 13m.
It's been shrunk to 5m tops. Walking with Dinosaurs has outdated sizes
I feel like I'm listening to an Asterix story 😂
good video, but what’s with the random camera swaps.. they’re unneeded
How'd they get the whole bird from those couple of Bones? How would a rhino's thigh bone tell you that it had a horn?
Thought he said with invertebrates not within vertebrates there for a second and was confused