Quetzalcoatlus northropi and Quetzalcoatlus lawsoni both called Big Bend home about 70 million years ago, when the region was an evergreen forest instead of the desert of today. “Pterosaurs have huge breastbones, which is where the flight muscles attach, so there is no doubt that they were terrific flyers,” said Professor Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley. They then applied their insights to its larger cousin. This provided enough material for the researchers to reconstruct a nearly complete skeleton of the smaller species and study how it flew and moved. Whereas the larger species, Quetzalcoatlus northropi, is known from only about a dozen bones, there are hundreds of fossils from the smaller species. This led to the identification of two new pterosaur species: (i) Quetzalcoatlus lawsoni, a smaller species of Quetzalcoatlus with a 5.5 to 6 m (18-20 feet) wingspan and (ii) Wellnhopterus brevirostri. The research involved close study of all confirmed and suspected Quetzalcoatlus bones, along with other pterosaur fossils recovered from Big Bend National Park. “Even though Quetzalcoatlus has been known for 50 years, it has been poorly known.” Matthew Brown, director of the Vertebrate Paleontology Collections at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. “This is the first time that we have had any kind of comprehensive study,” said Dr. An artist’s rendition of Quetzalcoatlus northropi.
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