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One group of prehistoric animals aside from the dinosaurs is rather famous in the public, although it has a horribly wrong view of them. The creatures in question are Pterosaurs. Many dinosaur fans think of those animals flying around in the background of their dinosaur pictures as leather-winged coastal animals which skim through the water with their beaks to catch fish. However, biomechanical studies have revealed that skimming through the water while flying would pretty much be suicide at least for the large crested Pterodactyloids so often portrayed in this inaccurate way. While Pterosaur fans and people which show further interest in these animals than decorating the skies of dinosaur scenarios should be aware by now that Pterosaurs had a dazzling variety of different lifestyles, some even more bizarre-looking than any dinosaur, people of the general public have a much older, much worse idea of what a Pterosaur looked like.
These people usually refer to them with the term “Pterodactyl” which is wrong as the only animal you may call that is the tiny Ctenochasmatoid Pterodactylus from Germany; however general people think of it as a flying monster and even combine it with entirely different pterosaurs: To them a usual “Pterodactyl” is very large, has the head crest of a toothless Pteranodon, but nonetheless has teeth in its jaws and a long tail with a vane at the tip like Rhamphorhynchus. Even in the most inaccurate drawings you won´t find a dinosaur with as many mixed up features of different species as most “Pterodactyls” out there. However; these people can now finally breathe a sigh of relief, as among the endless Pterosaur forms of the Mesozoic there coincidently IS one which combines all these features in one animal.
This ironic Pterosaur is Harpactognathus gentryii, a member of the long-tailed Pterosaurs usually called “Rhamphorhynchoids” (this group seems to be paraphyletic). Its long tail probably had a tail vane of some form, too, and like its closest relative - Scaphognathus from Germany - it had numerous sharp teeth sticking out of its beak. What makes it different from Scaphognathus and all other “Rhamphorhynchoids”, however, is its size: Its wingspan is estimated to be at least 2.5 meters in length, which would mean this animal might have exceeded the largest eagles of today! Its size and the fact it was discovered in the Morrison Formation (the place where Allosaurus, Stegosaurus and so on are known from) suggests this wasn´t yet another wimpy fish-eater, but a flying predator which would have killed small dinosaurs, too, as this unfortunate Drinker nisti is about to learn.
As new exceptionally well-preserved fossils and studies with the help of UV light show, even “Rhamphorhynchoids” had large soft-tissue crests on their head, often indicated by nothing more than a small bony ridge on their snout. In Harpactognathus, this bony crest even reached the tip of its beak, so it probably had a rather big head crest. And here you´ve got it, the large, toothed, long-tailed, crested “Pterodactyl” so erroneously depicted by the public as an actually existing animal. Now all we have to do is wait till everyone knows about this.

Description
One group of prehistoric animals aside from the dinosaurs is rather famous in the public, although it has a horribly wrong view of them. The creatures in question are Pterosaurs. Many dinosaur fans think of those animals flying around in the background of their dinosaur pictures as leather-winged coastal animals which skim through the water with their beaks to catch fish. However, biomechanical studies have revealed that skimming through the water while flying would pretty much be suicide at least for the large crested Pterodactyloids so often portrayed in this inaccurate way. While Pterosaur fans and people which show further interest in these animals than decorating the skies of dinosaur scenarios should be aware by now that Pterosaurs had a dazzling variety of different lifestyles, some even more bizarre-looking than any dinosaur, people of the general public have a much older, much worse idea of what a Pterosaur looked like.
These people usually refer to them with the term “Pterodactyl” which is wrong as the only animal you may call that is the tiny Ctenochasmatoid Pterodactylus from Germany; however general people think of it as a flying monster and even combine it with entirely different pterosaurs: To them a usual “Pterodactyl” is very large, has the head crest of a toothless Pteranodon, but nonetheless has teeth in its jaws and a long tail with a vane at the tip like Rhamphorhynchus. Even in the most inaccurate drawings you won´t find a dinosaur with as many mixed up features of different species as most “Pterodactyls” out there. However; these people can now finally breathe a sigh of relief, as among the endless Pterosaur forms of the Mesozoic there coincidently IS one which combines all these features in one animal.
This ironic Pterosaur is Harpactognathus gentryii, a member of the long-tailed Pterosaurs usually called “Rhamphorhynchoids” (this group seems to be paraphyletic). Its long tail probably had a tail vane of some form, too, and like its closest relative - Scaphognathus from Germany - it had numerous sharp teeth sticking out of its beak. What makes it different from Scaphognathus and all other “Rhamphorhynchoids”, however, is its size: Its wingspan is estimated to be at least 2.5 meters in length, which would mean this animal might have exceeded the largest eagles of today! Its size and the fact it was discovered in the Morrison Formation (the place where Allosaurus, Stegosaurus and so on are known from) suggests this wasn´t yet another wimpy fish-eater, but a flying predator which would have killed small dinosaurs, too, as this unfortunate Drinker nisti is about to learn.
As new exceptionally well-preserved fossils and studies with the help of UV light show, even “Rhamphorhynchoids” had large soft-tissue crests on their head, often indicated by nothing more than a small bony ridge on their snout. In Harpactognathus, this bony crest even reached the tip of its beak, so it probably had a rather big head crest. And here you´ve got it, the large, toothed, long-tailed, crested “Pterodactyl” so erroneously depicted by the public as an actually existing animal. Now all we have to do is wait till everyone knows about this.