I find the witness completely believable. That said, pterosaurs may have been hanging around at least until 1944, deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. So it’s probably safe to say, what people are seeing these days are not pterosaurs. Pterodactylus had small teeth, but nothing especially ferocious about them.įinally none of the pterosaurs had feathers and the giant birds being seen today definitely are all described as having feathers. Pteranondon was actually toothless so scientists think they flew the coastlines feeding on fish.

Yes, it was named after the flying, feathered god of the Aztecs.

However, recently a new genus of pterosaur has been discovered and named Quetzalcoatlus, a monster from the late Cretaceous era. Pterodactylus was small with a wingspan of only 8 feet. Pteranondon was the giant of this family with a wingspan up to 30 feet. The term came to refer to pterodacytlus and pteranondon together. Actually pterodactyls never actually existed. Most people think of pterodactyls when they think of prehistoric flying animals, but they are just part of a family of pterosaurs that filled the skies back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The heaviest bird known today is the kori bustard and that heavyweight can tip the scales at 44 pounds (20kg) which is still a long way off from the 150+ range of Argentavis magnificens. magnificens, but its wingspan is only 10 ft wide (3.2 m) and these condors only weigh up to 33 lbs (15 kg). The Andean Condor is another living candidate which is actually related to the A. The albatross wingspan is only 12 feet (3.65 m). Science tells us that today, the bird that comes closest to Argentavis magnificens’ size is the Wandering Albatross. The assumption then is since Teratorns and condors have shared habitats throughout ancient history, so it’s possible that Teratorns also found their way as far north of NY state. The condor bones were found in an Ice Age layer at the Hiscock Site in Genessee County, NY. Meanwhile in upper New York state, the former presence of California Condors have been confirmed by Richard Laub of the Buffalo Museum of Science and David Stedman of the New York State Museum. They’ve also been found in Oregon and as far east as Florida! That is one big bird! To give you an idea how large that is, see the picture to the left for a comparison of this bird to a school bus and to a grown man.įossils of this Teratorn have been found throughout the desert southwest including Nevada, the Anza-Borrego Desert in California, and the Arizona Strip. The photo to the right shows a model of what one would look like in the sky as a silhouette. Many good samples of its fossils have been found in central and northwestern Argentina. Now extinct, this fascinating bird is reportedly the largest bird ever discovered.

Part of the family Teratorns, Argentavis magnificens (magnificent Argentine bird) is so named because of its size and huge wingspan. Eagles, hawks, owls, and falcons are other examples of raptors.Ĭould there be any truth in these sightings? Are people really seeing some extraordinary species of bird that science hasn’t yet identified? Or are the culprits all too familiar? Let’s start by reviewing a small list of very large birds from history through today. This would mean they are hunters and would be classified as raptors. In some cases, the birds were seen to snatch up animals like pigs and sheep, and in a couple cases, children. For many years there have been reports of gigantic flying birds seen in the skies over the U.S.A.

Largest raptor bird