Dracula is a nickname given to an unnamed species of Azhdarchoid pterosaur that lived in Romania during the Late Cretaceous.
History[]
The fossil of Dracula was first discovered in 2009 near the town of Sebeș in Transylvania. It was discovered by Dan Grigorescu near the intersection of two local streams in 1984. The bone wasn't identified as pterosaurian until 2011. The fragmentary jaw bone collected measured 18.8 cm, but if if it were scaled up would make the jaw alone over a meter long. Estimates for the wingspan place it over one meter longer than the contemporary Hatzegopteryx, making it the largest or second largest (with Arambourgiania being first) flying animal ever. One of the coauthors working on the paper describing and officially naming the taxon, Mátyás Vremir, died at age 41 on July 24, 2020, of cancer, leaving the manuscript describing Dracula only partially complete.
An exhibition at the Dinosaur Museum Altmühltal describes Dracula as being the heaviest pterosaur and as tall as a giraffe.
Paleoecology[]
Dracula would have lived on Hatzeg island. Many organisms on Hatzeg followed Foster's Rule, many large animals got smaller and many small animals got larger. Dracula would have fed on the dwarf fauna of Hateg, including Zalmoxes, Magyarosaurus, Telmatosaurus, and Balaur. It is either from the Sebeș Formation or the Densuş-Ciula Formation.
References[]
- https://www.livescience.com/62662-largest-pterosaur-jawbone-transylvania.html
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-dracula-the-largest-pterosaur-found-to-date/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur_size#Pterosaurs_with_largest_wingspan
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1ty%C3%A1s_Vremir
- https://twitter.com/TetZoo/status/1422341131489185795
- https://dinopark-bayern.de/en/exhibitions/
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/meet-dracula-the-largest-pterosaur-found-to-date/