#ahzdarchid

[chameleocoonj]

curse of dinovember/diNOvember, azhdarchid image too tall :/

[slogokonnor99]

Ahzdarchids are graceful flyers in the air, but once on the ground, they are lethal predators.

For Hilda, it seems like she's learned this too late, as a Quetzalcoatlus has just spotted her. Has our fearless adventurer finally found its bane?

[teethands]

ive been really sick with tonsillitis. ive also been really itching to start my own speculative biology art project. these scratchy, rough scraps are the results of the past week ive spent brewing over an idea for a species that has been in my head, and though they arent entirely presentable, i plan to expand on them exponentially in the coming year

the first image is the most recent design for their faces. they are an intelligent, bipedal, aerial species that primarily communicate through the nasal crest on their head, of which is highly complex and muscled, allowing very thorough control of airflow and vocalization.

ive known what i wanted them to sound like since i first settled on a bodyplan; the above sound, the "high-altitude call", is made from the call of a channel-billed cuckoo and cassowary with some distortion. they are carnivorous and hunt larger prey in packs at particularly high altitudes, and i imagine this is the type of call they would utilize to communicate with eachother the presence of suitable game.

in their present day, they struggle to survive a recent and devastating P-TR like extinction event. though once high-fliers their skies have been blanketed with black dust, and to cope with the simultaneous severe heat and freezing cold of spontaneous global warming they attempt to move underground for a better chance at survival. more on that later.

[saint-nevermore]

Smaugust day 17 - Volcano

outliers of the natural world, Myngo-Ahzdars are widely thought to be Dragons. their environments of choice are often considered too hostile for the average person to venture to just to see some weird beasts, that and the animal’s general unpalatability leading to a lack of knowledge. it is thought they sift volcanic material from the toxic alkaline lakes they populate, feeding their young and colouring their feathers with magma. it is even believed they can spit molten rock in place of dragonfire. indeed, these are just flightless pterosaurs occupying a flamingo’s niche, filtering tiny prey from the brine. dragonkin are theropod dinosaurs, meaning the Myngo-Ahzdar doesn’t even count as a pseudo or false dragon like a drake, though the popular opinion of lava-eating dragons still prevails in most areas. (these are a fictional design for a fantasy world-building project, not representing any real genera aside from being an Ahzdarchid!)

[neovenatorgirlteeth]

There are three groups I would suggest to you:

Ahzdarchid pterosaurs, like Quetzalcoatlus, though they mainly hunted on the ground, so are better compared to storks.

Thallassodromeids (Thallassodromeus and Tupuxuara) a group of Brazilian pterosaurs with strong jaws, through to be predators. Neither group of pterosaurs is a good match, as birds of prey use their feet a lot, and pterosaur feet were useless for grappling and slashing and holding prey down

Dromaeosaurs, which are your closest match, being closely related to birds, physically similar, and used their feet in much the same way as a bird of prey. Additionally, although they were unable to fly, dromaeosaurs could climb very well, to keep out of reach of larger predators like a leopard does, and some smaller species could glide, as could the young.

Where there any animals analogous to modern birds of prey in the Mesozoic?