the.com/pterodactyl
the leathery sky-lizard that ruled the air millions of years before the first bird existed
means A pterosaur, especially the genus Pterodactylus — a flying reptile of the dinosaur age with leathery wings stretched along an elongated finger; in casual speech, any prehistoric winged reptile.
from From Greek 'pteron' (wing) plus 'daktylos' (finger) — literally 'wing-finger,' a precise nod to how the membrane stretched from an enormously elongated fourth digit. The naturalist Georges Cuvier coined the Latin 'Ptero-dactyle' in the early 19th century after studying a fossil; the silent 'p' before the 't' is pure Greek inheritance, the same one lurking in 'pterodactyl' and 'helicopter' (a 'spiral-wing' from the same 'pteron').
- not dinosaur
- Technically a flying reptile, not a dinosaur at all
- wingspan
- Some relatives stretched as wide as a fighter jet
- famous misnomer
- Real species is Pterodactylus; the cartoon name stuck
- toothy grin
- Sported needle teeth for snatching slippery fish
- hollow bones
- Bones were air-filled, like a bird's, for flight
pterodactyl kochi — fossil specimen from solnhofen limestone, bavaria, 1784
pterodactyl longicollum — species with notably elongated neck from jurassic period, germany