What's the difference between a pteranodon and a pterodactyl?
I was just wondering what the difference is between a pteranodon and a pterodactyl.
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The spelling. I think the one whose name ends in “n” was the biggest flying reptile yet discovered. I also seem to remember that one of them had a tail.
Pteranodons existed much more recently. They didn’t have teeth and were closer in the evolutionary process to birds than Pterodactyls were.
gasp With numbers like that, the word recent seems misplaced.
Pterodactyl is kind of a generic word for that encompasses both the pterodactyls and the pteranodon . So in other words a pteranodon is a pterodactyl, but a pterodactyl isn’t necessarily a pteranodon.
@AstroChuck No! The generic term is “pterosaurs.” Paleontologists typically hate it when “pterodactyl” is used generically.
@SavoirFaire Pterydactyl is a common word for winged reptiles. Yes, the proper term is pterosaur, but regardless of how much scientists dislike it, it is a word and it covers the order Pterosauria. I was simply answering the question “What’s the difference between a pteranodon and a pterodactyl?”. But if you prefer, a pteranodon is a pterosaur, but a pterosaur isn’t necessarily a pteranodon.
@AstroChuck There’s a difference between calling something a common word or a colloquialism and calling it a generic word. Saying it is a generic term implies that is proper. If you had just said that it was a common word, or that it was a colloquialism, you would have gotten no argument from me. I don’t disagree, after all, that people use the word “pterodactyl” to refer to both (mistaken as it may be).
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