This morning’s Random Object Randomogrifier spat out a Pteranodon, and the whole desk took flight.
Sketch & Coffee, Live! is streamed daily at 5:30am, Texas Time, at the YouTubes
These big Cretaceous fliers ruled the skies over North America about eighty-four to eighty-six million years ago and were already gone before the asteroid crash that ended the dinosaurs. Pterosaurs were found all over the world, but Pteranodons hugged the edges of that inland sea that ran from the Gulf to the Arctic.
Technically, they weren’t dinosaurs at all. Dinosaurs lived on land. These were pterosaurs, and the distinction matters to anyone who ever argued over fossils at the kitchen table.The name means “toothless flyer,” which fits perfectly for a creature with a long pointed beak and no teeth. Their wings stretched from the hand down to the body, pulled out by an absurdly long pinky bone. That makes them closer to a flying squirrel in design than a bird. Males had wingspans from sixteen to twenty-three feet, about one giraffe across, while females were around ten to thirteen feet, or half a giraffe. Someone in the chat said a flying giraffe would be terrifying, and they weren’t wrong. A pelican-sized fish snatcher with a giraffe’s wings sounds like something from a fever dream.
Pteranodon ate fish, scooping them from the water like pelicans do today, and may have even had a throat pouch to hold its catch. Their eyes sat on the sides of their heads, like seagulls or albatrosses, perfect for spotting prey in coastal waters. They died out with no descendants. Birds came from the theropod dinosaurs like Velociraptors, not pterosaurs. The bone structure tells the story clear as day.Even their name ties back to flight. The “pter” in Pteranodon is the same one in helicopter. “Helico” means spiral, and “pter” means wing, so a helicopter is literally a spiral-wing. It’s one of those bits of trivia that will start a fight between nerds.
Click here to watch this episode of Sketch & Coffee in the morning!
Also, if you, or a teacher friend, would like a 20-30 minute lesson plan about Pteranodons, feel free to download and share this one:
Leave a Reply