WWD: Aussiedraco molnari
Added 2023-07-11 09:59:05 +0000 UTCPterosaurs only appeared very briefly in distance shots and are not identified; they didn't even bother to make a new model and simply reused the small unnamed pterosaurs in the previous episode. It is a little more justified in this case, as pterosaurs are known from Australia around this time period, but they are all very fragmentary and none of them had names at the time. Accompanying texts stated how some were very similar to Ornithocheirus, and possibly even were members of the genus, but as you can probably guess nobody really thinks that now.
As the climate was much warmer and no ice caps existed, vast shallow seas covered much of the continental shelves; Australia was no different, much of its interior was submerged beneath the Eromanga Sea (don't google that word) during the Early Cretaceous, which was home to huge marine reptiles like Kronosaurus and Platypterygius, reefs of gigantic clams, and several different species of seagoing pterosaurs. This was one of them, a moderately-sized toothed pterosaur that is known from the tip of the bottom jaw. So everything here save that one body part is purely hypothetical. The colouration here is based on the Pteranodon which appeared in the Chased By Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters specials, since the original one was so indistinct it was basically uniform brown.
Pterosaur remains are known from the Eumeralla Formation, but they are too scrappy to diagnose as anything more specific beyond "any pterosaur group that was alive at the time". Still, the idea of migratory pterosaurs travelling inland to feed in freshwater or brackish waters is perfectly plausible, especially since the environment at the time was extremely lush and wet; a vast tributary system ran through the region, equal if not greater in size than the modern Amazon basin. There would have been an ample quantity of aquatic prey for fish-eating animals, but we'll get into that more in a later species entry...
