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A titanic relative of Rhamphorhynchus
🕑 Added 2025-08-07 13:34:57 +0000 UTCA personal spec-evo concept, a giant descendant of Rhamphorhynchus-grade "primitive" pterosaurs which somehow evolved to be as big as the famous Quetzalcoatlus.
To put things very simply, there are two main lineages of pterosaurs. Rhamphorhynchus, with its teeth, long tail, and short wings, belongs to the "Rhamphorhyncoid" branch.
Big, "advanced" pterosaurs like Quetzalcoatlus, on the other hand, hail from a way more derived lineage of tailless, long-necked, beaked "Pterodactyloids" or "Monofenestratans".
This creature evolved out of a "what-if" idea - what if a lineage of pterosaurs got as big as Quetzalcoatlus & co. without losing its "Rhamphorhynchoid" characteristics? I first created a photo-bashed sketch to illustrate this concept.
I shared this image online, and many people liked it.
This prompted me to turn this concept into a full illustration.
To be fair, this concept is a bit unlikely - since a giant animal like this would naturally evolve to lose its tail, teeth, etc. in order to conserve weight. But it certainly looks very cool!
This, by the way, is not the first fictional Rhamphorhynchoid I had illustrated. Almost a decade ago, I had designed this creature, the Occidodon - which was a fully marine Rhamphorynchoid that had evolved to resemble Mosasaurs.
Occidodon itself was a descendant of Ichthyopteryx, a more conventional, penguin-like fictional Rhamphorhynchoid.
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Comments
Omar Rodriguez
Very cool
