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[[wikipedia:Pterosauria|Pterosaurs]] (usually called ''Pterodactyls'' in media and in pop-language) are often referred as the "flying dinosaurs"; they actually were closely related with them, but technically were not true dinosaurs.
 
==== Pterosaurs in media ====
 
In [[Real Life]], pterosaurs were the main flying beings in the Age of Dinosaurs, coexisted with their land-living relatives for 160 million years and eventually went extinct together with the last dinosaurs. Like about dinosaurs, there are several issues about ptero-portrayals in media. They go far further than simple [[Anachronism Stew]] and [[Misplaced Wildlife]], they regard ''every'' pterosaurian biological feature. Here were fall in the [[Critical Research Failure]] field,and it’s easy to imagine [[Somewhere a Palaeontologist Is Crying|ptero-scientists cry]] [[Wall Banger (Darth Wiki)|more than every other colleague]].
 
* In fiction, these "reptiles" usually act as [[Giant Flyer|air-born terrors]] to menace humans and/or other animals, usually grabbing them with improbable eagle-like feet and magically strong enough to lift and carry their victims in flight, often giving them to their nestlings just like eagles. In [[Real Life]] pterosaurs had very weak legs with non-opposable digits and caught their food with their mouth instead. And [[Science Marches On|it has been recently discovered]] they didn't have any nestlings to feed: pterosaurs reproduced like lizards, buringburying and abandoning their soft eggs, until the hatchlings (termed "flaplings" by some paleontologists) emerged, strong-boned and ready to fly on their own.
 
* ExpeciallyEspecially in older media, they are often portayedportrayed with [[Mix and Match Critter|Bat Wings]], tying into the whole [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]] thing. Actually their wing-membranes were substainedsustained by ''only one'' overly-long digit, the fourth one (not the fifth as sometimes heard), which was as robust as the rest of the forelimb. The 1°, 2°, and 3° finger were normal-sized and protruded from the anterior wing-edge like the 1° digit of modern bats. More persistantpersistent is the depiction of the wings as loose, bat-like flaps of skin--in [[Real Life]], the wing membranes were thin but taut sheets of muscle, containing several distinct layers of complex muscle fibers which essentially made them into shape-shifting organs for on the fly adjustments.
 
* We don’t know at all which kind of sounds they emitted in [[Real Life]], but expect to hear them [[Noisy Nature|screeching loudly and continuously]] (usually in a mixed crow-vulture-seagull manner), and also fanning their wings as noisily as possible.
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Its worth noting, however, that [[Science Marches On]] has been a crucial factor in pterosaur portraits. Like dinosaurs, pterosaurs have undergone a sort of scientific "renaissance" since the seventies: traditionally described as awkward, cold-blooded gliders, then it has become clear that they were instead active and efficient fliers, ''covered with down'' like several dinosaurs and with high-rate metabolism. Nevertheless, even today they remain one of the most enigmatic group of prehistoric beasts, as their fossil record has always been one of the scarcest of all. Sadly, these issues are usually glossed over in pop-media, even today. See [[Ptero-Soarer]] to get into this in depth.
 
==== Stock Pterosaurs ====
 
Very few pterosaurs have been portrayed in non-docu media, despite their notable variety in [[Real Life]]. Among pterosaurs listed here, only three can be called “pterodactyls” without getting totally wrong: ''Pteranodon'', ''Quetzalcoatlus'', and of course ''[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Pterodactylus]]''. The other two, ''Rhamphorhynchus'' and ''Dimorphodon'', were more primitive than the former and are usually called “rhamphorhynchs”.
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''Pteranodon''’s nifty crest on its skull, along with the fact to have holded the size-record for almost a century, has made it THE pterosaur in popular imagination. Its iconic status among pterosaurs coud be partially justified. It’s not only one of the first discovered pterosaurs, but perhaps also the most common in fossil record. Hundreds of specimens are known, while most other pterosaur kinds are much, much rarer, often known from a single individual. The vast majority of Pteranodons belong to the species all people know, ''Pteranodon longiceps''.
 
==== Examples: Advertising ====▼
{{examples}}
 
▲== Advertising ==
* Features in the second Volvic bottled water ad.
 
 
=== Dragon-tailed fisher: ''[[wikipedia:Rhamphorhynchus|Rhamphorhynchus]]'' ** ===
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=== Divine beast: ''[[wikipedia:Quetzalcoatlus|Quetzalcoatlus]]'' * ===
 
This is, for now, the Ultimate [[Giant Flyer]] among prehistoric animals. Lived in North-America at the very end of the Cretaceous 70-65 mya (but some think its distribution was worldwide). ''Quetzalcoatlus'' was discovered in the 1970s in Texas from incomplete remains. Its wingspan was extimatedestimated from 10 m / 35 ft up to 16 m / 50 ft, with the lower range being the most likely. [[Rule of Cool|Of course]], pop-media have often followed the higher one. This “living airplane” took the Pteranodon’s reputation over as “the biggest flier ever” in those years. Its describer named it from an Atzec divinity: Quetzalcoatl, the “feathered snake” (the animal itself is often called “the quetzalcoatl”.)
 
''Quetzalcoatlus'' was long described as similar to an upscaledup-scaled ''Pteranodon''. Indeed, both animals had a long toothless beak and an atrophied tail. Some depictions show ''Quetzalcoatlus'' with a small cranial crest, others show it crestless. Compared to a pteranodont, ''Quetzalcoatlus'' had much longer/stronger hindlimbs, a bigger body, a longer/stiffer neck, and shorter/wider wings with the “hands” closer to the wingtips than to the shoulders. Its diet has long been an enigma (Fish? Small reptiles? CarrionsCarrion?). In the 2000s, scientists re-studied its anatomy, and today ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is thought a mainly terrestrial animal, walking on its four long limbs, and eating small land critters like a stork. <ref>It’s worth noting that the terrestrial hyp was already postulated just after the first find, but initially not demostrateddemonstrated.</ref>
 
The astonishing thing is, in spite of being [http://pterosaurs.wordpress.com/2008/05/16/azhdarchid-paleobiology-part-i/ as tall as a giraffe] when on land, ''Quetzalcoatlus'' could still ''fly''. Giving its size, it should have been an extremely powerful flier, capable to frequent several habitats, and maybe even to travel worldwide. An almost-identical relative, ''[[wikipedia:Hatzegopteryx|Hatzegopteryx]]'', was recently described from Europe. It was extimatedestimated even bigger than ''Quetzalcoatlus'', but they could be the same animal.
 
Despite their impressiveness, ''Quetzalcoatlus'' has received great attention only in dino-books and documentaries, while is still rare in films and dino-stories. No matter if, with its size and terrestrial habits, it could have been the ''only'' pterosaur potentially dangerous for humans if alive today. A downsized ''Quetzalcoatlus'' flying robot capable to flap its wing was built in the 1990s by an paleo-amateur: the first ptero-flight after 65 million years.
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=== The first named Mesozoic reptile: ''[[wikipedia:Pterodactylus|Pterodactylus]]'' * ===
 
Rarely will you see any other pterosaur in fiction, but if you do, it will either be ''Pterodactylus'' or ''Dimorphodon''. In the original novel ''The Lost World'' (1912), the two scientists argue if the pterosaurs they meet are one of the two. Whatever kind they were, they are enormously oversized—[[Up to Eleven|even bigger than a Pteranodont]]. In [[Real Life]] both were not bigger than a large seagull. In recent stories, ''Pterodactylus'' and ''Dimorphodon'' were rarely (if ever) portrayed, but are common in documentaristicdocumentary media due to their historical relevance.
 
''Pterodactylus'' was the ''first'' fossil recognized by science as belonging to a prehistoric animal completely different to the modern ones (well before the first dinosaurs); this happened in year 1809, when concepts like "extinct" and "antediluvian" (the word "prehistoric" came later) were still highly controversial. Obviously, ''Pterodactylus'' was the very first flying reptile ever found, and even early paleontologists tended to refer to the whole group as 'pterodactyls' long before the name Pterosaur was coined; this explains why ''pterodactyl'' has become the stock name of pterosaurs.
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=== A toothed toucan: ''[[wikipedia:Dimorphodon|Dimorphodon]]'' * ===
 
''Dimorphodon'' was a rhamphorhynchoid that lived in Early Jurassic, 190 mya. Found in England, it shared with ''Rhamphorhynchus'' the elongated stiffened tail, but we don’t know if it had a “fin”. Its more striking trait is its oversized skull, even bigger than the body itself! Despite appearencesappearances, the head of ''Dimorphodon'' was lightened by wide openings in the skull, and the animal couldn’t have troubles to lift it, a bit like modern toucans and hornbills with their beaks.
 
Its name, “two-shaped teeth”, recalls that of the famous ''Dimetrodon'' (“two-measured teeth”). It had [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|two kinds of teeth]] (while most pterosaurs have only one). Some teeth were bigger and sparse among the smaller ones. With this kind of dentition, the feeding habits of ''Dimorphodon'' have always been matter of speculation. It could have been a fisher, a hunter of small land animals, an insectivore, or all these things.
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Similarly, these animals are often collectively referred to as "swimming dinosaurs", but this time they were ''not'' close relatives of true dinosaurs; some of them were not even related each other. If you'd like to see a seagoing dinosaur, watch ''[[Everything's Better with Penguins|March of the Penguins]]''.
 
=== Sea-reptiles in media ===
 
Four main groups of sea reptiles can be recognized in media: Plesiosaurs, Ichthyosaurs, Mosasaurs, and Pliosaurs. In [[Real Life]] there were other sea-going reptiles in the Mesozoic, but being less-impressive than the former, they don’t gain much attention. (except for the giant turtle ''Archelon'', that shows up occasionally). As with most prehistoric animals, only the largest will be mentioned from each group: ''Elasmosaurus'' for Plesiosaurs, ''Liopleurodon'' for Pliosaurs, and ''Tylosaurus'' for Mosasaurs --with the exception of the Ichthyosaurs. Ichthyosaurs will be represented only by ''Ichthyosaurus'' which was actually small for the group, though that won't stop them writers from making it bigger. However, in old media ''Plesiosaurus'' is frequent as well, even though was a very small member of the eponymous group (but don’t worry: it is shown regularly oversized as well).
 
Interestingly, unlike dinosaurs, marine reptiles were ''already'' well-known to science at the beginning of the 19th century. Their fossil record is overall wealthier and better-preserved than that of the dinosaurs. Significantly, the very ''first'' “antediluvian” reptiles entered in narrative media were not dinosaurs, but the Ichthyosaur and the Plesiosaur which battle each other in the novel ''[[Journey to The Center of The Earth]]'' written by Jules Verne in 1864. Both animals were enormously oversized and depicted in a ''very'' fanciful way: if you read the novel, you'll find them more like [[Mix and Match Critter]]-related [[Sea Monster|sea-monsters]] than their [[Real Life]] counterparts.The “ichthyosaur” is similar to a mixupmix-up of whales-crocodiles-dragons-snakes-whatnot, and has not the familiar fish-like shape of a [[Real Life]] Ichthyosaurus. The plesiosaur is a bit more realistic, but has a serpentine neck and the shell of a sea turtle. However, some of these errors are due to [[Science Marches On]], as we’ll sesee in the single sections below.
 
Possibly thanks to Verne, the battle against prehistoric marine reptiles has become stock in paleo-art and pop-culture, just like its land-placed equivalent "Carnivorous vs Herbivorous Dinosaur". One of the opponents is always a long-necked Plesiosaur, while the other may alternate between a Mosasaur, an oversized ''Ichthyosaurus'', or a Pliosaur. In these portraits, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and pliosaurs tend to be used indifferently, often confused each other and portrayed as generic “giant swimmers”.
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=== Turtles inside a snake's body: [[wikipedia:Plesiosaur|Plesiosaurs]] ** ===
 
Plesiosaurs (more correctly, plesiosauroids) are the most distinctive marine reptiles, and lived worldwide throughout the Mesozoic, 210-65 mya. With their long necks, massive body, short tails, small heads, and four paddle-like limbs, their look may recall that of a “flippered brontosaur”, but they were actually very different than a sauropod dinosaur. They were carnivorous like all known marine reptiles. With their small mouths, they arguably ate only small items, like fish, juvenile reptiles, or shellfish. Their hunting tecniquestechniques are still matter of discussion -- active hunting, ambush-predation, bottom-feeding or even partial filter-feeding are all possible. They had pointed teeth protruding from their jaws, but were perhaps covered by lips in the living animals. [[Rule of Cool|For obvious reasons]], expect to see plesiosaurs with ever-visible teeth fitted outside their mouth, often oversized and more protruding than in [[Real Life]], literally making a snake-like head.
 
The association with snakes and turtles seems a constant when talking about plesiosaurs. Even scientists once used to describe these animals as “[[Mix and Match Critter|turtles into a snake’s body]]” or “[[Mix and Match Critter|snakes into a turtle’s body]]”. Their body was actually turtle-like (except for the lack of shell of course), and their neck had a huge number of vertebrae (even 76 in ''Elasmosaurus''!). Classic depictions show plesiosaurs with extremely flexible necks capable to coil and to dart like a snake. [[Science Marches On]] however, and it was discovered in the 2000s (thanks to simulations in CGI) their neck was much more rigid than previously thought, a bit like what is happened to sauropod dinosaurs.
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Like Plesiosauroids, Pliosauroids too were widespread throughout the Mesozoic, 218-65 mya. Both subgroups shared the same body plan, with rigid bodies, short tails, and the two pairs of powerful flippers--perhaps alternately-moved making a typical “double-wings” swimming effect (as seen in ''[[Walking with Dinosaurs]]''). The difference stays in front of their shoulders. Pliosaurs had very short stocky necks, and their head was far bigger than an ''Elasmosaurus''. Their teeth were less-numerous, but much longer and stronger: like elasmosaurs, expect to see them visible when the mouth closed, even though they could have been hidden by lips in [[Real Life]]. Despite the resemblances, the head-anatomy of plesios and plios was the same. Both had eyes and nostrils placed above to see out of water when the remaining head was submerged. Both shared a singular trait: each nostril had two chambers like fish, possibly giving them a directional sense of smell. We don’t know if they passed more time near the surface or in the deeps, but some think pliosaurs were more deep-creatures than plesiosaurs.
 
Pliosaurs were variably-sized, some were not bigger than dolphins, but the biggest one are candidates for “the largest sea reptile” title – even though their size has often been exagerratedexaggerated. Among the latter, ''[[wikipedia:Liopleurodon|Liopleurodon]]'' and ''[[wikipedia:Kronosaurus|Kronosaurus]]'', were among the top-predators of the Jurassic and early Cretaceous oceans respectively. Once extimatedestimated 16 m long (10 m are more likely), ''Kronosaurus'' is named from Cronus, a Greek goddity who [[I Am a Humanitarian|devoured its own offsprings]] (Zeus and Poseidon among them). About the same length was the less-coolly named ''Liopleurodon'', virtually identical to the former but with less teeth. As is usual with marine superpredators, both are usually depicted as [[Carnivore Confusion|merciless ever-hungry]] [[Prehistoric Monster|killing machines]].
 
Despite this, Pliosaurs have been the least-portrayed group of sea-reptiles, and still remain mainly documentary-animals. The kronosaur has long been the most commonly shown pliosaur in books and documentaries until 1999, when a memorable appearance of an [[Rule of Cool|extraordinarily oversized]] <ref> The fictional length 80ft/25m was based on misidentified bone fragments; in reality, the species maxed out at 25ft/7m long</ref> ''Liopleurodon'' on [[Walking with Dinosaurs]] rapidly made it the new iconic member of the family (very similarly to ''Deinonychus'' à ''Velociraptor'' thanks to [[Jurassic Park]]). In the show, an old male liopleurodon was described weighing 150 tons (a bit less than the Blue Whale) and [[Up to Eleven|the biggest predator of all time]]. In particular, the scene in which he pulls the ichthyosaur in pieces [[Nightmare Fuel|disturbed many viewers]] (even though the sad final scene where he’s stranded and slowly dies gives it a bit of humanity). To give the idea about how the animal remained impressed in pop-consciousness: [[Follow the Leader|all successive depictions]] have shown Liopleurodons with the WWD blue-white color-patterns. <ref> For some reason, unlike dinosaurs and pterosaurs, marine reptiles are almost-always shown with dull colors even in modern portraits. However, they could have been very colorful like modern tropical seagoing animals.</ref> While WWD may have made ''Liopleurodon'' the Stock Pliosaur in place of ''Kronosaurus,'' [[Charlie the Unicorn]] managed to bring it to the status of minor Internet meme.
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At least Pterosaurs and the above-mentioned seagoing animals are from the same Mesozoic time-period. Don't even get us started on how [[wikipedia:Synapsida|Synapsids]] (commonly named "mammal-like reptiles") are sometimes labeled dinosaurs.
 
=== Synapsids in media ===
 
Most synapsids lived well before the apparition of the first dinosaur; indeed, synapsids were the very first large land vertebrates and diversified much during their permanence on Earth, until most of them got wiped out in the Permian mass extinction. In the Brave New World that followed, the few surviving non-mammalian species were outcompeted by [[wikipedia:Archosaur|archosaurs]], the group containing dinosaurs, pterosaurs and crocodilians.
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Even prehistoric ''mammals'', are sometimes mislabeled dinosaurs. Colloquially, this is often true of fish as well, or any prehistoric-looking creature, such as the [[Prehistoric Life|Coelacanth]].
 
=== Mammals in media ===
 
Among mammals, those living in the Ice Age are the most portrayed, because they lived along with [[All Cavemen Were Neanderthals|the most iconic hominid species]].
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Expect to see ''Smilodon'' heavily interacting with humans, as our ancestors' main predator: in [[Real Life]] other carnivores such as [[Prehistoric Life|prehistoric lions]] were probably more important predators. And expect to see it ''living alongside woolly mammoths''. Even though they were contemporary, their habitat in [[Real Life]] was largely different, with Smilodons preferring warmer climates. And, naturally, don't exclude seeing saber-toothed cats somehow living alongside dinosaurs, and in the worst scenario, [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|fighting against a T. rex]].
 
==== Examples: Advertising ====
 
== Advertising ==
* Appears in the third Volvic bottled water ad.
 
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Sorry, these aren't here. If you're looking for ''Mammuthus columbi'', ''Mammuthus imperator'', ''Mammuthus sungari'', ''Mammuthus trogontherii'', Dwarf elephants, ''Titanohyrax'', ''Machairodus'', ''Homotherium'', ''Megantereon'', ''Dinofelis'', ''Ursus spelaeus'', ''Arctodus'', ''Miacis'', ''Brontotherium'', ''Embolotherium'', ''Paraceratherium'', ''Megaloceros giganteus'', ''Bison priscus'', ''Bison antiquus'', ''Andrewsarchus'', ''Livyatan'', ''Megatherium'', ''Mylodon'', ''Castoroides'', Ceratogaulids, ''Phoberomys'', ''Palaeochiropteryx'', ''Planetetherium'', ''Diprotodon'', ''Thylacosmilus'', ''Thylacoleo'', ''Gigantopithecus'', and others, see [[Prehistoric Life/Mammals|here.]]
 
=== Other extinct creatures ===
Sorry, these aren't here. If you're looking for Scansoriopterygids, Enantiorns, Neorns, ''Teratornis'', Crocodylomorphs, ''Protosuchus'', ''Hallopus'', ''Pristichampsus'', Mekosuchines, ''Bavarisaurus'', Megalania, ''Postosuchus'', ''Rutiodon'', ''Euparkeria'', ''Erythrosuchus'', ''Kuehneosaurus'', ''Sharovipteryx'', ''Longisquama'', ''Scutosaurus'', ''Procolophon'', ''Eudibamus'', ''Triadobatrachus'', ''Karaurus'', ''Eocaecilia'', ''Eryops'', ''Cacops'', ''Platyhystrix'', ''Ichthyostega'', ''Tiktaalik'', Coelacanths, ''Eusthenopteron'', Lungfish, Acanthodes, ''Palaeoniscus'', ''Cheirolepis'', ''Megalodon'', ''Haikouichthys'', Trilobites, ''Pterygotus'', Ammonites, ''Orthoceras'', Rudists, ''Lingula'', Graptolites, ''Cothurnocystis'', and others, see [[Prehistoric Life/Dinosaurs/Birds|here]], [[Prehistoric Life/Non Dinosaurian Reptiles|here]] or [[Prehistoric Life/Other Extinct Creatures|here]].
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Stock Dinosaurs]]
[[Category:Tropesaurus Index]]
[[Category:Stock Dinosaurs Non Dinosaurs{{PAGENAME}}]]
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