Joel Kontinen
Researchers recently found a fragmented fossil of an enormous flying creature in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.
Pterosaurs were enigmatic creatures. They were almost too big and too heavy to fly, but they somehow managed to take to the air.
Tall as male giraffes (5.5 metres or18 feet), they had a wingspan of 9.7–11 metres (32–36 feet).
They appear suddenly, fully formed in the fossil record at the time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth (according to Darwinian thinking).
Pterosaurs had exquisitely designed features, some of which are found in modern bats and some in modern birds.
There is no shortage of mosaic-like creatures in the animal kingdom. The extinct ones include Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik.
Living mosaics, such as the e duck-billed platypus and the spiny anteater, are problematic for evolution.
They are not evolving into something else, and neither did pterosaurs.
Source:
Pickrell, John. 2017. Ancient Winged Terror Was One of the Largest Animals to Fly. National Geographic (31 October).
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