The Great Fish Hunter

No matter how good the flier, hunting fish from the air isn't easy. One big problem is that when an aerial fisher swoops down and jabs its beak into the water, it can reach only those fish that are swimming close to the surface. A very few modern sea birds escape this limitation by using the plunge-diving technique. We can see the technique in the brown pelicans that fish off the California coast. These big birds circle slowly in the air until they spot their fish target. Then they dive straight down. Just before they hit the surface, they fold their wings against their sides, giving their bodies the shape of an armor-piercing bomb. The pelican penetrates the water to a depth of several feet. Then it opens its huge mouth and sucks in prey.

Giant Cretaceous pterodactyls of the Pteranodon family were also built to be plunge-dive bombers. The Pteranodon head was huge and pelican-shaped, with a long, pointed bill. But penetrating the water at high speed is dangerous—the force could twist the head right off the neck. To strengthen the neck against the shock of hitting the water, Pteranodon had extra joints on the underside of each neck bone that locked each bone in place. During the dive, the pointed bill, head, and neck became as rigid and deadly as a spear.

Pteranodon also had expandable lower jaws like those of today's pelicans. When the great pterodactyl plunged deep into the water, it could open its throat pouch wide and suck in fish or squid. Altogether, these pterodactyls had a plunge-diving design that was unequaled in efficiency until the pelicans themselves evolved 60 million years later.

If pterodactyl images have come a long way since King Kong, it's because pterodactyl science has come a long way. The creatures no longer have the reputation of being nasty and devilish. Indeed, as scientists fine-tune their knowledge of pterodactyl anatomy, the pterodactyl is becoming one of the most admired of Mesozoic species.