Pteranodon
Reborn as a Pteranodon, you would spend your days gliding over a warm inland sea, scooping up fish with a long beak that never had a single tooth in it.
A sea in the middle of a continent
About 86 to 84 million years ago, North America was split in two by the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow, warm sea running from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic. Its old floor is now the chalk of western Kansas – the Niobrara Formation – and that is where most Pteranodon fossils come from. More than a thousand specimens are known, which makes it one of the best-sampled pterosaurs anywhere.
First, the paperwork: you would not be a dinosaur. Pterosaurs were a separate branch of reptiles, close cousins of the dinosaurs, and the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight – tens of millions of years before birds.
Built like a glider
Your wings would be membranes of skin and muscle stretched from an enormously elongated fourth finger down to the legs. Large males reached wingspans of around 6 metres, yet probably weighed only a few dozen kilograms, because the bones were hollow with very thin walls. The long, narrow wings suit dynamic soaring over open water, much like an albatross: long glides, occasional flaps. Taking off almost certainly meant vaulting into the air with the arms rather than running.
The menu: fish. Fish remains have been found in the throat region of Pteranodon specimens, and the name itself means ‘toothless wing’.
What the crest was saying
Adults came in two shapes. Larger individuals had long, swept-back crests; smaller ones had modest crests and a wider pelvic canal, which fits egg-laying females. Most researchers read the crest as a display signal, a bit like antlers, so as a male much of your social life would involve showing off your head.
The sea was not safe. Huge sharks such as Cretoxyrhina and mosasaurs patrolled below, and at least one Pteranodon neck vertebra has been found with a shark tooth embedded in it. Settling on the water to rest or fish was probably the riskiest moment of the day.
