Fearsome pterosaur the size of a plane discovered in Mongolia

The 70-million-year-old remains of an enormous flying predator that feasted on baby dinosaurs have been discovered in Mongolia.

The flesh-eating reptile, which was the size of a small plane with a wingspan stretching 11 metres (36ft), was likely one of the largest animals ever to fly. 

It could have walked on all fours using its wings as front limbs to stalk prey on the ground, researchers said, and would have stood as tall as a giraffe, according to the Daily Mail.

Because of its size, the new carnivore is thought to have eaten juvenile or small dinosaurs, which were common during the Late Cretaceous period when the animal lived.

The fossil was found in a region of Mongolia's Gobi desert known as the Nemegt Formation, an area where many dinosaur bones have been found before. 

It is thought the beast was a pterosaur, a group of giant flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs.

The animals were the first vertebrates known to evolve the power of flight, and are thought to have been the largest flying animals ever seen on Earth.

While the species unearthed in Mongolia has not yet been identified, researchers were struck by the sheer size of the backbone fragments found.

“I immediately recognised that it might be a pterosaur and was astonished at its gigantic size,” palaeontologist Dr Takanobu Tsuihiji from the University of Tokyo told National Geographic.

'Straight away, we went back to the site and discovered the rest of the specimen.'

Based on the eight-inch (20cm) width of the backbone fragments found, the researchers claim the animal would have been similar in size to the two largest known species of pterosaur.

The huge predators Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx probably had wingspans of 10 metres (32ft) and 11 metres (36ft) respectively. 

This is the first time the famed Nemegt Formation fossil patch has yielded a pterosaur, showing how far-reaching the group was in the Late Cretaceous period.