Resloralion by G. Howard Sliorl 



Courtesy of Aeronautical Journal 



A Reptilian Aeronaut 



A NEW SKELETON OF PTERANODON, THE GIANT 



THE CRETACEOUS PERIOD 



FLYING REPTILE OF 



Bv W. D. MATTHEW 



THE American Museum has recently 

 purchased a remarkably fine skele- 

 ton of the Pteranodon, or giant 

 pterodactyl, found in the Kansas 

 chalk formation by IMr. Handel T. Martin. 

 It is believed to be the most complete single 

 individual of the giant form yet discovered, 

 and was about twenty feet from tip to tip of 

 the wings. One hind leg, the tip of one wing, 

 and most of the skull and jaws are missing, 

 otherwise it is practically complete. The 

 skeleton will take some time to prepare and 

 mount suitably before it can be placed on 

 exhibition. 



These gigantic flying reptiles are the most 

 extraordinary of all extinct animals. They 

 surpassed the largest living birds in spread of 

 wings, although with much less bulk of body. 

 Their habits and method of flying were differ- 

 ent from those of birds, and in many particu- 



lars are still a puzzle. They had no feathers, 

 but a wing membrane like the bat, only it was 

 stretched on a single enormously long digit 

 instead of upon five. The construction of the 

 wing finger shows that they must have de- 

 pended almost entirely upon soaring in their 

 forward flight. The flight of the albatross 

 and other long-winged sea birds affords the 

 nearest analogy. The wings could not be 

 folded back against the body as in birds; the 

 shoulder and elbow were hinge joints allowing 

 only of movement up and down; the move- 

 ments at the wrist joint were more complex, 

 but were concerned chiefly with the rotating 

 upward and downward of the wing plane, 

 in association with the stretching and back- 

 ward flexing of the wing; the knuckle joint, 

 halfway out upon the wing, allowed of sharp 

 backward flexure, and at this joint were three 

 hooked claws (the remains of the other digits) 



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