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A recently discovered ancient reptile, dubbed the "flying dragon of the north" with a F-16 size wingspan, would be the largest flying animal ever discovered, according to scientists.
According to a study published last week, the flying reptile named Cryodrakon boreas lived in what is now western Canada about 76 million years ago.
Scientists have known Cryodrakon bones for nearly three decades. However, his name is only now confirmed as being his genre in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
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"The animal, when it was alive, would not have been a frozen dragon," study co-author Mike Habib, a palaeontologist at the University of Southern California, told National Geographic. .
"That would have [been] fly in a landscape that would have been reasonably temperate … but it's a lot warmer than the center of Alberta. "
It is believed that the wing of the flying dragon extended more than 30 feet and that walking on the ground was more than eight feet in height at the shoulder, which roughly corresponds to the same height as some giraffes.
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The partial skeleton of Cryodrakon was unearthed from Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992. Dave Hone, another co-author of the study, stated that Habib and he were working with the "exceptionally well preserved" specimen, which included parts of Cryodrakon's wings, legs, neck and ribs.
This type of pterosaur [azhdarchids] is quite rare and most specimens consist of only one bone. Our new species is represented by a partial skeleton. This tells us a lot about the anatomy of these jumbo jets, their flight and their way of life, "Hone told SciTech Daily.
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"This particular group of pterosaurs includes the largest flying animals of all time. Their anatomy contains important clues about the limits of animal flight and could be important in the future for biologically inspired mechanical design for flight. "
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