Ornithocheirus was a medium/large sized Ornithocheirid Pterodactyloid Pterosaur. It lived in the Early Cretaceous Period, around 110 Ma/mya (mega-annum/millions of years ago) It was up to 6-7 metres in wingspan, yet due to a lightweight body of hollow-bones filled with air sacks, probably weighed less than 100 kg (the single heaviest parts, being the beak and needle like teeth)
In the past, exaggerated and misinterpreted size estimates of Ornithocheirus, put it at 12 metres (40 feet) in wingspan, considered to rival Quetzalcoatlus in size. As it stands, there is no evidence to confirm this. Most likely, unless proven otherwise with more fossil evidence, both Tropeognathus and Ornithocheirus were around the same size range as the average Pteranodon would be - that is, mainly between 6-7 metres wingspan for mature adults (though rarer, especially large specimens among their kind, may have been up to 8 metres in wingspan, which is an entirely reasonable speculation; some Pteranodon were over 8 metres wingspan, in spite of being considerably smaller than the true giants like Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx, both exceeding 11-12 metre wingspans)
Walking With Dinosaurs[]
Ornithocherius' relative Tropeognathus as it appeared in Walking With Dinosaurs.
Ornithocheirus did not directly appear in the series. However, it's close relative Tropeognathus was the actual pterosaur species portrayed in the episode - although in 1999, when Walking With Dinosaurs was made, it was called Ornithocheirus and nominally assigned to that genus at that time, leading to some confusion. Tropeognathus is an Ornithocheirid, nonetheless.
Specials[]
Ornithocheirus is featured in Episode 1 of Chased by Dinosaurs, whereNigel Marven sees one as he uses a microlyte to find the Argentinosaurus herd from the aerial perspective. It is explained that the wingspan of the aircraft is 26 feet - and the Ornithocheirus is a staggering 40 feet. It is shown to fly beside Nigel for a brief time, before trailing off. The same model from the original series was apparently used, 4 years after the original series.