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Pterodactyls Were Too Heavy to Fly, Scientist Claims
from the Telegraph (UK)
They carried away Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC and were ferocious in the Jurassic Park series of films. But now it seems pterodactyls, the terror of the prehistoric skies, may have struggled to get off the ground.
The new research claims that the ancient reptiles, which could grow to the size of small aeroplanes, were too heavy to fly—even with their massive wings. The problem, according to a leading scientist, is that they could not flap fast enough to create the thrust to keep their enormous bulk airborne.
The 'dinosaur' popularly known as a pterodactyl is actually called a reptile called a pterosaur, which is Greek for flying lizard. It existed alongside the dinosaurs between 251 and 65 million years ago, and were thought to be the biggest creatures to ever take to the air.
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