The partial skeleton that defines Cryodrakon was dug up from Canada’s Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992. The discovery of Cryodrakon means North America was home to at least two genera of large azhdarchids, expanding our knowledge of ancient diversity and how the world’s largest flying creatures eked out a living. When it was walking on the ground, as azhdarchids often did, it was more than eight feet tall at the shoulder, roughly the same height as some giraffes. When flying over what’s now Texas, the creature’s wingspan stretched more than 30 feet. The azhdarchids are also known for reaching immense sizes, none more so than Quetzalcoatlus. Both animals belong to a group known as the azhdarchid (azh-DAHR-kid) pterosaurs, which were notable for being mostly head and neck. Learn about the anatomical features that made their flight possible, how large some of these creatures grew, and which species was named after a vampire legend.įor a long time, paleontologists had instead assumed that the fossils belonged to a pterosaur called Quetzalcoatlus northropi, says study coauthor Dave Hone, a paleontologist at Queen Mary University of London. Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to take to the skies. “For me, as a Canadian who also works on pterosaurs, it’s pretty cool to get an actual name for an animal that’s been kicking around for a while,” says paleontologist Liz Martin-Silverstone, a research associate at the University of Bristol who wasn’t involved with the study. The pterosaur’s bones have been known to scientists for nearly three decades, but it has only now been confirmed as its own genus, researchers announced on Tuesday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. but a hell of a lot warmer than central Alberta is now.” “It would have flying in a landscape that would have been reasonably temperate. “The animal, when alive, would not have been a frozen dragon,” notes study coauthor Mike Habib, a paleontologist at the University of Southern California. The flying reptile-named Cryodrakon boreas-lived in what is now western Canada about 76 million years ago, during what’s known as the Cretaceous period.
In the icy badlands of Alberta, paleontologists have found a “frozen dragon”: a new genus of pterosaur that once soared over the heads of dinosaurs with a wingspan that stretched at least 16 feet.
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