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Hatzegopteryx
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this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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Whoa… that damn thing could eat a horse.
“Hatzegopteryx belonged to the pterosaur family, which were previously thought to only eat smaller prey. But researchers have now realized that they could eat other dinosaurs and animals as big as a horse.”
Well, that sounds like a lot, until you realise that mfking seagulls can eat rabbits.
Your link mentions them weighing "a quarter of a ton". Now, idk what "ton" theyre using there, but a quarter of a US ton would be "only" 226 kg. That's ~500lbs.
I'd like to remind everyone that a reality TV-show called "My 600-lb life" exists.
So regarding hypothetical horror scenarios, I'm not too fussed about the overgrown seagull as much as I am about the feathered 4000-8000kg monster with a skull almost the size of an adult woman running at me at 70km/h.
Here's another comparison picture, though I'm not sure if it's valid or not. Looks cool, regardless.
Unrelated, but I love scientific pictures that almost look like shitposts 😀
"smells like bitch in here"
fr lmao
That thing looks like a fucking dark souls boss.
A giraffe weighs about a ton.
Those are very big animals indeed, but also, tve flying one can't be too thick, or it wouldn't fly.
Think of the difference between a cat and a visibly similarly sized bird, like a crow or smth. The crow would have barely any mass and you'd be able to crush it's fragile body quite easily.
A cat on the other hand, has a lot of weight, comparatively, and doesn't rely on any limbs to fly, leaving them open to be weapons. Each limb hides a handful (hehe) of razors.
I read about these mega-birdos before and iirc, they too have hollow bones?
Size is scary, and birds can be mean as fuck, but it's pretty fragile. Think of what a good whack with a baseball bat on one of those limbs would do.
And then think how much it would damage a T-rex or equivalent non-flying animal. Not even a bruise.
I reckon if you gave me a bit of armor of some sort, a good knife and a baseball bat, I could take one on.
I'm joking. Semi. I know I'm probably dead wrong in that but I have a hard time imagining their fighting tactics. Although some modern birds pierce things with their beak, and if that stomped on me, it'd still weight the ~230kg, and then proceeded to peck furiously?
I don't think protective biker gear or a baseball bat would help much, and I'm not too fit rn, so my roly-poly skills are a bit rusty.
they would be able to run up to you (at probably about the same speed as a giraffe, but whats important is that it would be faster than you), and then peck at you, and if you dont get impaled by its beak, then it would probably stomp and kill you anyway
i dont think any amount of armor can hold 230kg without deforming heavily, though i could be wrong
I think it's more about the pressure.
But I can definitely endure a pile of soldiers jumping on top of me (get your mind out of the gutter we had our clothes on), and the total weight was definitely more than 250kg. It wouldn't be distributed as evenly though, because the weight would be distributed in a smaller area.
I wouldn't bet anything on a fight between me and one of those, but if I had to battle one to the death, either one of these or a t-rex, I'd choose one of these.
My logic is that if it just tries gobbling me up (as birbs and snakes tend to do), I could just slice it open from the inside (realistically I would be crushed probably and unable to do that but it sounds badass so I'm going with it).
Dodging the pecking while armored really well in proper biker gear would be a bit like fencing, as you'd have the baseball bat to crack the beak/bill anytime it missed/glanced.
Is definitely imagine humans being more nimble, so I wouldn't run, unless there was some forest or something to run into.
I'm pretty sure you can get driven over by a the wheel of a car in proper biker gear and be relatively fine. And even small cars weigh 4x what this birbski does.
But again, I wouldn't want to and wouldn't place a bet on myself, I'd just prefer fighting one to fighting a t-rex, which I'd probably have a hard time taking down even armed with basic infantry weaponry. (Meaning like 7.62)
I would think that it would be on the easier side to survive an attack from this thing, maybe, but harder to beat it in a fight, as any present danger that you pose to it can kind of just be circumvented by it choosing to fly away and then hit you when you're unawares. So I think hunting strategy would probably play a pretty big factor in this as well.
It depends on how this thing attacks prey. If it's a bird of prey, I'd kind of assume that it would dive prey and scoop it up, rather than landing and then attacking it's prey, and it's much harder to dodge a large bird than it is to kind of, fence away chicken-like pecking, as you've kind of described here. Much like how pelicans dive bomb surface fish.
I think it's also probably more likely that this thing would snap at you compared to pecking, which is probably going to be harder to dodge, depending on how much it opens its mouth, and what angles it tries to hit you at. Vertical snapping is pretty ineffective at hitting vertical targets like humans. I'd imagine it might be pretty capable of flesh wounds, though.
I agree that you can probably survive being stepped on by this thing, but some of the artists' renderings have claws, and in combination with the pressure and even just the size and probable strength of this animal, I'd imagine it could hit you with a pretty large gash, which might kill you without medical attention. Let's also consider that, even though you can experience a car rolling over you, and cars routinely weight more and spread their force over a similar surface area, a better analogue, along those lines, might be if we dropped a car on you, tire-first. If this thing decides to step on you, it's not putting down just 250 kg, it's putting down 250kg, plus momentum, plus muscular force.
So, overall, I'm not quite as optimistic of your chances as you seem to be.
I'm not really too optimistic, I'm just depressed and haven't got much to live for, so I haven't much to fear.
That being said, I do think I would lose yeah, but how glorious would it be to win?
Now to the theory. Do we actually know it was a predator? Modern birds of prey all have either very strong, crooked, beaks and/or talons. These have very long, toothless beaks. Personally, I think it more likely they were a beast that scavenged and used opportunities (much like a seagull), instead of actually hunting prey.
If that is the case, then they wouldn't be optimised for fighting. You make a good point in that killing one might be hard because it could so easily get away. Buuut... unlike modern birds, these use all 4 limbs to support themselves while on the ground. If you managed to a nice blow with a baseball bat on it's forelegs while it's on the ground? It might not be able to take off again, or even walk around properly.
Like... even if you dislike/fear birds, how many people arr afraid of being "bitten" by a seagull?
Literally toothless.
I'm not sure if there are theories to how this species hunted, but I looked for reference in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus this article about (I presume) a different massive pterosaur.
It could swoop down, pick you up, lift you a few hundred feet in the air, and then drop you.
That could be a reasonable tactic. Although in this hypothetical I'm a semi bad-ass (as they're behaving unnaturally as well by focusing on me no matter what), and I said I'd need a knife, a bat and armor. This is where the knife part would come in handy, perhaps.
I believe it probably could pick up a person but still, a slightly larger than average person would be almost half the mass of it.
But I've seen an eagle pickup a goat and use that tactic...
But eagles are not quadripeds, unlike this thing, and this thing would try to carry me it's mouth, not in it's talons.
In an action movie it'd pick me up and fly, but I'd manage to stab it before we're too high and I'd fall down into some trees. Depending on the category, I'd either suffer a few broken ribs or I'd land on a tree branch and make :O this face as I hit my balls.
If they could do that, they wouldn't need hollow bones to fly. They could have strong bones and also fight on the ground effectively, while maybe losing the ability to pick up an additional 250 lbs, if they ever had it.
Canadian Geese [can't] break bones because of how powerful their wings [aren't-ish-kind-a-sorta] and they're an eighth our size. Imagine one three times bigger lol (3x bigger roast). Sure their bones are fragile, but the muscles that are attached to them sure ain't [not].
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/out-and-about/dogs/curious-questions-can-swan-really-break-arm-190943
Well heck and hoopa dang cannit. Thanks for clearing that up for me lol, peace is an option (by ignoring them)!
It's a very persistent myth.
And swans/geese are friggin scary when they flab about and hiss.
Sharing tracker free link (junk at end deleted) to that since I prefer ’em. +(Piped mirror)
… oh wow I’ve seen that, absolutely wild. Is that seagull-doctor recommended behavior? Wonder how long it took that bird to fly again.
Yeah, but a rabbit sounds like the kind of thing you expect to get eaten by a bird. A goddamn horse is not!
Maybe an eagle or hawk or something. Learning seagulls can do this blows my mind like your popular uncle that turns out to be a serial killer cannibal.
Imagining the feeling of having an entire fucking rabbit stuck in my throat isn't something I wanted but I've now thought about. Thanks. I'm going to drink some water.
Ok, but the fact that humans can pack on enough fat to weigh 4x what is a not uncommon healthy weight for an adult or 3x what is healthy for among our larger adults is irrelevant. 250 lbs in a healthy adult human would be well into outlier territory. Like I looked it up and at 6’11” healthy weight by bmi is up to 230lbs. And sure could a 6’11” person theoretically get into bodybuilding, yes, but at that height your body is already struggling against itself and you’ve gotta watch your back because it’s already not having a good time
~~Uh, according to Google 1 US ton is 2000 lbs.~~
Yes?
2000 lbs =906kg
1/4th of 906 = 226.5.
Or if you want to skip that, just 1/4th of 2000 = 500, which I say is the weight in lbs.
Ah, missed the "quarter of" bit. Thought you were saying 1 ton = 500 lbs. It's all good
Haha, another silly meme dinosaur
...
JESUS CHRIST THAT THING'S REAL?!?
except its not a dinosaur...
correct its a meme dinosaur
Memeisaur?
no not a nidosaur
I know! I’m stuck somewhere between astonishment & being pissed off they didn’t let Goldblum ride one of those things in one of the Jurassic Parks.
;_; my childhood is now even sadder after missing out on this hypothetical... That would've been epic.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatzegopteryx
While the species was identified in the 1970s, the archaeological community didn't announce it to the general public until 1991. This means that when Michael Chrichton was writing the novel, presumably in 1988-1990, he wouldn't have known about it. The novel was published in 1990
How terrible.
So zebras?