51¹ú²úÊÓƵ

Scientists and students teamed up to create the gigantic models of flying pterosaurs now terrifying commuters and tourists on London's South Bank. 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of Portsmouth palaeobiologists and engineers spent nine months working with a local hovercraft firm to construct the steel and aluminium beasts. The standing and suspended models - unveiled as the centrepiece of the Royal Society's 350th anniversary exhibition - are of the Texan pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, the largest flying animal in history. It had a wingspan of approximately 30ft and a mass of nearly a quarter of a tonne. Pterosaurs dominated the skies from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous period, 220 million to 65.5 million years ago.