Badass Hungry Pterodactyl Trivia Quiz

Answer: Winged finger

'Pterodactyl' comes from the Greek 'pteron' (wing) and 'daktulos' (finger), because it had wings made of skin and muscle, which stretched from its fourth finger to its hind limbs. The official scientific name for the pterodactyl is Pterodactylus antiquus, and it is the only species in the Pterodactylus genus.

The pterodactyl belonged to the Pterosauria family, a family of flying reptiles ('Pterosaur' meaning 'winged lizard').

Answer: Romania

This enormous beast was exhibited at the Altmühltal Dinosaur Museum in Bavaria in 2018, as part of the 'Emperors of the Skies' exhibition; it was a fitting choice of venue, as multiple pterodactyl skeletons have been discovered in Germany. However, the pterodactyl itself was originally discovered in Romania in 2009. Dracula's wingspan is estimated to have been at least twelve metres (39 feet), and it is about the same height as a giraffe.

It was a rare find, not just because of its size, but also because palaeontologists were able to reconstruct the whole body, rather than just finding a few odd bones.

Answer: Georges Cuvier

The fossil that Collini described had been found in Bavaria, in the Solnhofen Limestone, some years before and donated to the Naturalienkabinett (Nature Cabinet of Curiosities) in the palace of Charles Theodore, the Elector of Bavaria, by Count Friedrich Ferdinand zu Pappenheim. The actual date of discovery is unknown.

Johann Hermann, a German-French scientist, notified Cuvier of the fossil in 1800, believing that Napoleon's armies might have taken it to France as spoils of war. Although Hermann believed the creature to be a mammal, similar to a bat, Cuvier argued that it was a reptile; in 1809, he published a more detailed description and called the fossil a 'Ptéro-Dactyle', which he later Latinised to 'Pterodactylus'. Cuvier was also responsible for naming the mastodon, a precursor to the elephant, and the Megatherium, a giant sloth-like creature.

Answer: An upward-projecting bony crest on its head

The pteranodon was in the same suborder as the pterodactyl (Pterodactyloidea), but multiple differences have been noted between the species, one of these being crests on their heads. While the pterodactyl's crest is lower and thought to have been made of tissue, the pteranodon's crest pointed upwards - a bit like a mohawk - and was made of bone. Male pteranodons had bigger crests than females. Pteranodons also did not have teeth, whereas pterodactyls had rows of cone-shaped teeth in their beaks. Neither species had feathers or opposable thumbs.

Answer: Carnivorous

The pterodactyl's sharp teeth, and the arrangement of its teeth, prove that it was a carnivorous creature. A 2020 study on the teeth wear of various flying reptiles proposed that the pterodactyl's diet largely consisted of invertebrates, and that it was a generalist feeder.

In other words, it did not live on a limited diet, and was not restricted to feeding within a certain area. The pterodactyl's diet later evolved to include fish, eggs and carrion as well.

Answer: No

Although pterodactyls lived at the same time as dinosaurs, and were also reptiles, they were pterosaurs, which are not dinosaurs! They were both part of the Avemetatarsalia clade and shared a common ancestor but, after that, they diverged, with dinosaurs being in the Dinosauromorpha group and pterosaurs being in the Pterosauria group. Pterosaurs left no descendants that are alive today, but dinosaurs did - birds are considered to be the only living dinosaurs, thought to have descended from theropod dinosaurs (hollow-boned dinosaurs with three claws on each limb).

Dinosaur skeletons also differ from pterosaur skeletons, in that they have empty holes in their hip sockets and long crests in their upper arm bones. Pterosaurs lacked these, and their arms stretched out to the side, not in front.

Answer: Jurassic

The Mesozoic Era was known as the Age of Reptiles and the Age of Conifers, and was the time when dinosaurs walked the Earth and the supercontinent of Pangaea began to split into smaller landmasses. The pterodactyl's era was the Middle to Late Jurassic period; the pteranodon came later, during the Late Cretaceous period (the period when an asteroid was believed to have hit the Earth and wiped out multiple lifeforms).

The Jurassic period gets its name from the Jura Mountains on the border between France and Switzerland, the original place where limestone layers from the period were identified.

Answer: True

The pterodactyl used its limbs not only to walk, but to fly as well. Track marks left by a pterosaur in the Pterodactyloidea suborder, Pteraichnus saltwashensis, in the Morrison Formation (a rock formation made of various sedimentary rocks, encompassing much of the western USA) in Arizona proved that they were capable of walking. These tracks were discovered in 1952 by William Lee Stokes, a palaeontologist from Utah who was investigating uranium deposits in the Carrizo Mountains district when he came across the tracks. It has been theorised that the pterodactyl would land on its feet before walking away on all fours.

Pterodactyl prints were also discovered more recently in the Gansu Province in China in 1999, amongst several other dinosaur footprints. Martin Lockley, a curator at Colorado University's palaeontology museum, identified the footprints as belonging to a pterodactyl.

Answer: Its size

The plot of 'Pterodactyl' involves a load of pterodactyl eggs hatching on the border between Armenia and Turkey and attacking various humans. However, the pterodactyls in the film are more similar to the pteranodon, due to being much bigger than a reptile of the Pterodactylus genus, and having a cranial crest made of bone rather than tissue.

On the subject of popular culture, the fell beasts ridden by the Nazgûl in 'The Lord of the Rings' bear some similarities to pterodactyls, although JRR Tolkien did not intend them to be 'pterodactylic'. They are described as featherless winged beasts, with pinions between their horned fingers and a disgusting smell.

Answer: No

Although the pterodactyl and other pterosaurs died out as a result of the same mass extinction event that wiped out multiple other species, evidence was unearthed in Morocco suggesting that there were multiple species living at the time. Seven species of pterosaur from three different families were found there, and six of these species were new to science. The pterosaurs found in Morocco were nearly double the number of previously known pterosaurs from the end of the Cretaceous period.

Several of these pterosaurs were found near the coast rather than inland like previous species, suggesting that they flew over and along oceans (in a similar manner to seabirds).