Nature
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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a nifty piece of video editing, or perhaps a remote-controlled drone.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Yes, here we are again, and this time a YouTube video is suggesting that a pterosaur – a flying reptile that lived at a similar time to the dinosaurs – was spotted flying over Boise in Idaho, US.
It’s pretty easy to realize this is probably CGI, although we will admit it is moderately impressive. The creature flaps its wings as it flies over and, unlike UFO videos, the footage is not blurry and shaking all over the place. The pterosaur has been coloured slightly brown, making it look a bit like a pterodactyl.
Check out the "pterosaur" in the video above. Rumble Video/YouTube.
Pterosaurs were pretty damn awesome, though. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period, 228 to 66 million years ago, and roamed the skies at the same time the dinosaurs ruled the ground. For this reason, they are often incorrectly called “flying dinosaurs.”
Pterosaurs are the earliest known vertebrates that could fly, with a large membrane of skin forming their wings. And some grew to be absolutely enormous; Quetzalcoatlus, which existed around the Late Cretaceous period, is thought to have had a wingspan of up to 11 meters (36 feet).
But pterosaurs became extinct due to the same reason as the dinosaurs 66 million years ago – the Cretaceous-Paleogene impact event. So it’s pretty unlikely someone would spot one flying over Idaho. Although, you know, never say never. Except in this instance.
