The Largest Known Flying Animal Was Even Weirder Than We Thought

The Largest Known Flying Animal Was Even Weirder Than We Thought. The pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus northropi is the largest known flying animal to have ever existed, living on Earth more than 67 million years ago. Now new research on the creature and its newly discovered smaller relative,  Quetzalcoatlus lawsoni, gives us a better idea of how  Q. northropi flew and got airborne to begin with. Our knowledge of Q. northropi is based on hundreds of fossils discovered in modern-day Texas, and its take-off method has been a matter of some dispute: It has been suggested that it ran to build up speed like an albatross before flying, or rocked on its wingtips like a bat, or perhaps that it didn't get up into the air at all. To stay up to date with latest top stories, make sure to subscribe to this YouTube channel by clicking the button above this video! The new study suggests that the pterosaur used a leap of up to 2.5 meters (a little over 8 feet) into the air, followed by flaps of its 11-meter-long (36-foot) wings, to take to the sky.