Quetzalcoatlus Facts for Kids
KET-sul-koh-AT-lus · its name means “named after a feathered serpent”
🪽 Not a dinosaur: a pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived with them
One of the biggest flying animals ever, and not a dinosaur.
- 📏 36 to 39 ft11 to 12 m1 wingspan
- ⚖️ 507 lb230 kg1
- 🕰️ 69 million years ago69 million years ago2
- 🍽️ meat
Quetzalcoatlus was a giant flying reptile. Its wings were huge. It was not a dinosaur.
Quetzalcoatlus was a pterosaur, a flying reptile, and one of the biggest animals ever to fly. On the ground it walked on all four limbs, with its huge wings folded up.
Its first fossils were found in Big Bend National Park in Texas. Scientists think it walked about on land picking up small animals, like a giant stork. To take off, it probably vaulted into the air using its strong front limbs. Like Pteranodon, it was a pterosaur, a cousin of dinosaurs but not one.
Every dinosaur number is scientists’ best guess from bones, so each one says where it came from.
How big was Quetzalcoatlus?
Quetzalcoatlus in numbers
| Wingspan | 36 to 39 ft11 to 12 m1wingspan; scientists' estimate |
|---|---|
| Height at the hips | no checked number yet |
| Weight | 507 lb230 kg1just over; scientists' estimate |
| When it lived | 69 million years ago69 million years ago2about; the Late Cretaceous of Texas |
| What it ate | small animals it found on the ground |
| Fossils found in | Texas, including Big Bend National Park, and Montana |
| What kind | a pterosaur: a flying reptile, not a dinosaur |
Wow!
- Its first fossils were found in Big Bend National Park, Texas.
- It probably took off by vaulting with its front limbs.
- It walked on all four limbs on the ground.
🦴 Quetzalcoatlus’s bones
Books about Quetzalcoatlus, free at the library
Ask a grown-up to tap the button: it shows where to borrow a book about Quetzalcoatlus for free.
Where was the land back then?
The continents were in different places when Quetzalcoatlus lived, 69 million years ago. Open Planet Earth, pick Drifting continents, and slide back in time to see where the land was.
🦖 Ride a Quetzal in Dino DashThe game’s rare Aurora Quetzal is a made-up version of this animal.
Its neighbours in time
Where these numbers come from
- National Park Service, Big Bend: pterosaur, checked 30 October 2026.
- National Park Service, fossils of the 2018 National Fossil Day artwork, checked 30 October 2026.
- Wikidata, Quetzalcoatlus (Q131205), checked 30 October 2026.
To read more: the Natural History Museum’s Dino Directory (see also, not copied).