Some of Godzilla’s mates may have been strange — and the monsters that Ultraman regularly wrestles with may cross the “strange” boundary into outright bizarre — but the real-world Quetzalcoatlus northropi — a winged critter from the Cretaceous period — shows yet again that the giants of our past were more than capable of boundary-pushing strangeness in their own right.
At nearly 5 metres tall [16 feet], with a wingspan of about 10 metres [33 feet], and with a beak bigger than the average human, this member of the pterosaur family would have been a monster not to be trifled with.
Read about it here.
It was of course named after the mythical Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, who is most famous in cinematic terms for his titular role in Larry Cohen’s wonderfully eccentric Q – the Winged Serpent (1982):
Of course, Quetzalcoatlus probably glided rather than actually flew like Q, but hey! If that thing was coming at you from out of the sky, you probably wouldn’t be worrying too much about the details.
Source: Wired
mmm) “Q – the Winged Serpent” is nice movie, love it!