The remains of a "fearsome beast" has been found in the Australian outback, scientists calling it the "closest thing we have to a real dragon".
But don't be afraid - Thapunngaka shawi was a pterosaur that lived alongside the dinosaurs about 105 million years ago, scientists from the University of Queensland said.
Its skull was more than a metre long and its wingspan a massive seven metres - about twice as wide as the modern record holder, the wandering albatross.
As the artist's impression shows, Thapunngaka would have been a horrifying sight in the western Queensland skies.
"It was essentially just a skull with a long neck, bolted on a pair of long wings," said University of Queensland PhD candidate Tim Richards, who led the research.
"This thing would have been quite savage. It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn't have heard it until it was too late."
The massive skull had about 40 teeth and a huge bony crest on its lower jaw. Scientists assume it had one on the top too that didn't survive the ravages of time.
"It’s quite amazing fossils of these animals exist at all," said Richards, noting the bones were hollow and very thin, well-adapted to flight.
Pterosaurs were related to dinosaurs, but evolved separately. Scientists say they were wiped out by the same asteroid which killed all the dinosaurs that weren't birds.
"To be clear, it was nothing like a bird, or even a bat," said Richards. "Pterosaurs were a successful and diverse group of reptiles - the very first back-boned animals to take a stab at powered flight."
Thapunngaka's name combined words from the extinct language of the Wanamara Nation, an indigenous people who inhabited the area where the fossil was found. It translates to 'Shaw's spear mouth', acknowledging the local man who originally found it in 2011, Len Shaw.
The research was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
