If giraffes were predators they would look both hilarious and terrifying while sneaking up on their prey

I’m afraid you’ve missed the predatory giraffes by about 66 million years mate.

These guys are Azhdarchid pterosaurs, and they were some of the strangest reptiles to ever exist. They were perfectly capable of flight, but their physiology suggests that they may have spent a significant portion of their lives hunting on the ground. 

The largest of them could reach over 5 metres tall while standing, and had a 10-metre wingspan. They varied greatly in body type, from the tall, spindly forms of Quetzalcoatlus and Arambourgiania (images 4 and 1-2 respectively) to the heavy brute strength of Hatzegopteryz, a species that may have used its head to bludgeon its prey (images 2 and 3).

There has never been another flying animal before or since to have reached such incredible sizes, nor any predator so intimidatingly tall. Well, not any that we know of yet.

All of these illustrations are by Mark Witton, a palaeontologist and artist who specialises in pterosaurs. This is his blog about palaeontology and the science of reconstructing extinct species. You can find out more about each of these images here, here and here.

(Oh, and by the way … these are NOT dinosaurs)

What the hell these are so intimidating, why aren’t these in any dinosaur movies

Just imagine it … 

The protagonists and a few disposable minor characters are walking carefully through a forest at night, covered by a thick fog. They know there are dinosaurs everywhere, but they can’t see more than three metres in front of their own faces.

Eventually they stop near a small cluster of trees to rest. As they sit there, exhausted, one of the trees begins to move. Everyone freezes, terrified. They have no idea what this thing is.

Then a massive beak slams down, longer than a person is tall, and plucks one of the minor characters off his feet and into the air.

The small group erupts into movement, frantically running away from whatever those things are. There’s two of them now, and as the fog begins to clear the group are able to make out more of their shape. They are huge, with long, spindly necks topped with a massive, daggerlike head. The long legs that they once mistook for trees have an almost mechanical movement as the giant creatures stalk towards them. And then comes the next terrible surprise.

These things can run.

It’s a short film.

How could those things possibly fly? Could they take off from the ground or did they need a cliff like bats do?

Okay this is really bizarre and awesome but like these guys probably used their giant long wings to pole-vault themselves into the air, from a standing start no less. No run-up or cliffside needed, just some massively powerful arms to launch them skywards like the world’s most terrifying slingshot.

(The pterosaur in the video I linked isn’t an azhdarchid, but it gets the general picture across)

because it wasn’t terrifying enough already….

How does something that big have hollow bones though? Wouldn’t they break under the pressure of pole vaulting themselves?

Basically, azhdarchid bones aren’t just “hollow”. They’re actually full of an incredibly complex network of spongy strands of bone that functions almost like scaffolding to support the bones and make them a lot stronger than they would initially appear. A lot of dinosaurs, including very large ones, had this same sort of bone structure as well.

 It’s a delicate balance between being light enough to fly and strong enough to take off and staying in the air, but they certainly weren’t skinny, lightweight pushovers like they’re often portrayed.

You want to know my favourite thing about quetzalcoatlus?

It’s scientific name is

Mexican Feathered God

If you think I’m joking, I’m not. I’m dead serious.

Look it up if you think the pic is edited, idrc, but it’s the funniest thing I know about dinosaurs.

Also I love dinosaurs a lot, I’ve been obsessed with em since I was like seven, and I had the best day last week when I opened a kinder egg and I got a little t-rex. I don’t care if I’m eighteen, dinosaurs have, and always will, make me squeal like a four-year-old ÚwÙ

IT KEEPS GETTING BETTER

(Or worse, depends on how you look at it)

I hope one day you wake up not bearing that heavy feeling anymore.

today i was talking to my therapist about being upset that my dad wanted a daughter and she told me 'your father is crying by a grave of his own making that has no corpse in it. you do not need to fill it for him and are not required to weep beside him' and I had to take a sip of water bc my mind stopped working for a moment

I think some adults need to realize that teens don’t dislike adults because teens are rebellious and punk, a lot of kids and teens dislike adults because every interaction they’ve had with them is dismissing and condescending 

I’m not even a teenager anymore and I still feel like this.

Notice the fact that when teenagers have favorite teachers it’s the teachers who treat them as equals and don’t talk down to them but with them

i think part of the reason why i love disney’s hercules so much is that the idea of a sassy hades resounds so deeply with me as a person who has siblings. like imagine if you were rich as fuck and had to live in what’s basically the flooded basement of the entire world while your brothers fart around banging everything in sight. if i had to live in a literal swamp and listen to stories about poseidon turning into a horse to get sexy with demeter i’d probably have no fucking patience too

zeus: hey assfuck have you seen demeter’s kid

hades:

It’s okay to like that you’re trans. You’re allowed to be happy that you exist in the way that you do. You’re allowed to not want to have been “born cis” like the popular narrative for trans people in the media shows.

Rodrigo Assi x

Renata Henriques   x

Oliver Wood in the movies: Soft™, approachable, here to help!! Does his best, loves to fly, Don’t worry! Just do your best!

Oliver Wood in the books: ALRIGHT TEAM WE ARE GONNA PRACTICE UNTIL THE BROOM HAS FUSED TO YOUR FLESH. SEX IS GOOD BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MY QUIDDITCH DIAGRAMS? NO OFF TOPIC PROBLEMS WE ARE HERE TO RIDE OR DIE

*looking at the moon* what highlighter does she use?

Theater matters. Band matters. Dance matters. Art matters. Photography matters. Color Guard matters. Poms matters. Choir matters. Creative Writing matters. THE ARTS MATTER.