Headstart for flight

A GIANT pterosaur that lived near the end of the dinosaur age in Romania flew thanks to a puffy skull. Hatzegopteryx had a wingspan of 12 metres, and its heavy-looking skull was a monster 3 metres across, raising questions about how it got off the ground. Now Eric Buffetaut of the CNRS research institute in Paris says the key to its flight was very light bones (Naturwissenschaften, DOI 10.1007/s00114-002-0307-1). Thin bony walls separated empty space in a skull that was “more or less expanded polystyrene”, he says.