New Pterosaur Video?

Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 1st, 2007

Are the following new video images those of a prehistoric flying reptile seen over the waters near New Guinea?

Well, frankly, I am not going to play any investigative games with you, my readers today about these YouTube uploads. Unfortunately, the democracy of the internet is going wild with such speculations about living pterosaurs. All these people would have to do is look in any good bird identification guide.

These images are most certainly footage of frigatebirds, which are related to the pelicans; please compare to the photographs below. There are five species in the family Fregatidae, the frigatebirds, and clearly the configurations of their wings, to a few, look prehistoric. Females have a white underbelly, and males can have wingspans of almost seven feet. They look gigantic flying over water (especially without reference points), while they search for food. But they are not pterosaurs.

New Guinea Pterosaur

New Guinea Pterosaur

Thanks to Azrul Hisyam Saleh for pointing to these and his interest in obtaining a proper identification.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.


29 Responses to “New Pterosaur Video?”

  1. dws responds:

    looks big…

  2. treeclaw responds:

    No, that’s a dragon…I swear it!

  3. Sunny responds:

    Those are frigate birds/man-o-war birds — no question in my mind. They are very common around tropical shorelines like that in the video, and have that signature W-shape to their wings when coasting.

    Beautiful birds to watch, but not pterodactyls.

  4. DWA responds:

    I punched the play button and almost immediately thought: frigatebird.

    Wow. Maybe all these bigfoot sightings are really people.

    And not even wearing ape suits.

  5. Bob Michaels responds:

    Note the winglike appendages have a petrosaur appearance, an adaptation that has survived the passage of time. One can state that the priniciple exhibited in reptilian flight evolved into the flight of modern birds.
    Dinosaur fauna are not extinct, you can find them in your backyard at the bird feeder.

  6. tomdee27 responds:

    How big of a wingspan can frigate birds have?

  7. Loren Coleman responds:

    Sir, tomdee27, did you read this blog? Your answer to your question is revealed therein.

    🙂

  8. mystery_man responds:

    Well, I can certainly see how someone who knew nothing of frigatebirds could think that they were seeing a pterosaur. Now imagine if there was no video of this to confirm what it was we were indeed seeing and only this witnesses testimony, the details they revealed (and I admit, the details could be seen as very reminiscent of a pterosaur), and their recollection of the encounter. There would be a major debate over the account simply because the witness did not know there was any such thing as a frigatebird. They would be convinced that they saw a pterosaur and their account would read accordingly. It makes me wonder how many witness sightings were…. oh wait, wrong thread. 🙂

  9. elsanto responds:

    I’ve only seen photos of frigate birds, but I knew instantly from that video clip that it was a frigate bird I was looking at. If I can clearly make such an identification, then there are implications there for sasquatch witnesses that were familiar with the Patterson or other films before having seen the creature in the flesh…

  10. alanborky responds:

    Loren, I live in Liverpool in the UK which as you probably already know is a port city, which means we have lots of seagulls flying overhead, and in silhouette form their wings can look severely sharp, strangely prehistoric looking, even, but if you look long enough the shape of their head or tails usually gives them away.

    As soon as I started watching the video it was apparent while it wasn’t a seagull it was definitely a bird.

    I’ve never seen a frigatebird before, but I’d say the ID is probably correct.

    The thing is, in the past I’d’ve been dead certain whoever shot this must’ve been a tourist, and simply unfamiliar with local fauna.

    These days, though, it’s just as likely the shooter was local, because what I’ve recently been noticing is how the usual tendency of people to pay limited attention to their surroundings has now become reduced virtually to the level where they don’t pay any attention at all unless they’re looking down the barrel of a vidcam or the likes.

    The peculiar result of all this, or so it seems to me, is we’re in danger of producing both the most visually sophisticated generation in the history of the world, when it comes to the two-dimensionally imaged world of electronics, etc., but at the same time the most visually illiterate generation ever when it comes to scrutinising and evaluating the three-dimensional real world they’re actually supposed to be living in.

  11. DWA responds:

    “The peculiar result of all this, or so it seems to me, is we’re in danger of producing both the most visually sophisticated generation in the history of the world, when it comes to the two-dimensionally imaged world of electronics, etc., but at the same time the most visually illiterate generation ever when it comes to scrutinising and evaluating the three-dimensional real world they’re actually supposed to be living in.”

    Well said. No kidding.

  12. Alaska-boy responds:

    We live in the first era of human civilization where actually watching the sky is no longer a primary activity and form of entertainment. Most of us spend the majority of our dim little lives trapped in buildings and watching artificial scenes of our own invention. “Illiterate” indeed.

    At least growing up in the Last Frontier I was exposed to enough wildlife and nature not to fall for something like this…

  13. Ceroill responds:

    Interesting points about ignorance of local environs. This is even evident in urban areas where it is often found that the locals have not familiarized themselves with the places of note in their own vicinity. Many NYers (so I hear) have never been to the Empire State Building.

  14. Lee Pierce responds:

    I’m not an expert but I have to go along with Frigate bird. Another waste of time.

  15. kamoeba responds:

    I have been especially harsh on the YouTube entries that are obvious fakes (and rightfully so, I think). I believe that these two particular videos are probably frigatebirds, but at least the people watching and filming the bird in action don’t claim outright that they are watching a pterosaur. Merely a case of mistaken identity it seems.

    To all you hoaxers out there–notice how the camera didn’t jiggle around like it’s being thrown around in a 6-4-3 double play? See, it IS possible to get footage of a living creature without stumbling around like Foster Brooks.

  16. folcrom responds:

    Its definitely a frigate bird.

    The feathers on the wings are a dead give away.

  17. I_M_NOT_A_Yarwen responds:

    So I can just take a video of a goose and put it on youtube, calling in the Loch Ness Monster? ……hmmm…..I guess I shouldn’t be surprized since you see so many pictures of house cats that are claimed to be Black Panthers.

  18. sasquatch responds:

    I knew it was a bird right off the bat…Get it? Bat? Ha, Ha…Bad attempt at trying to appear as an intellectual head patter….”Now see kids, this looks like a pteradactyl but it’s really a sea bird”. Save it will ya? know one thinks that anyway. Man, patronizodactyl! That’s what I see…

  19. shumway10973 responds:

    ok, we have all come to the same conclusion, thanks Loren for giving us the answer this time. The only thing I want to know is does the person filming this really believe they filmed a pterosaur, or are they trying to make those of us who really do want to have pterosaurs to still exist look stupid? Kinda reminds me of the stupid big foot in ape costume footage(s).

  20. skeptik responds:

    Nice looking birds. What’s their status in terms of being endangered?

  21. UKCryptid responds:

    They’re not doing too badly, most sea birds are suffering a bit with over-fishing, but frigate birds steal food from the puffins and other gulls coming back to their nests so I don’t think they realise the probs the smaller birds face catching them 🙂

  22. Randlet responds:

    I think youtube is making people stupid, also the video quality of its encoding isn’t as good as some of the alts out there.

  23. Ranatemporaria responds:

    In Full agreement with loren et al on this one however on the subject of hoaxes i did read an interesting article a while back, eyes peeled eh?…
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070404-22324800-bc-us-pterodactyls.xml

  24. btgoss responds:

    YouTube is the carrier, it just let’s us see how far the infection has gone.

  25. jchip responds:

    Definitely a Frigate bird. They’re thick around Cancun and fascinating to watch in flight.

  26. springheeledjack responds:

    I’m in on the frigate bird. without scale against the sky there is no reference for size, but a seven foot wingspan is going to be pretty impressive…especially flying overhead, and fast…

    the markings in the video match the frigate bird too.

    Are there frigate birds populations around Central / South America…I know there have been a lot of pterosaur sightings in those areas in the past (well maybe not a lot, but some).

  27. borntofightdinosaurs responds:

    it’s funny.

    even if it WASN’T a frigate bird, and it WAS a living pterosaur, it would STILL be mistaken identity.

    with no head crest and a long tail, it would have been a rhamphorhynchus.

    still, i give the people who filmed this credit. a good, clean, steady shot. why can’t THEY shoot our nessie and bigfoot videos?

  28. RockerEm responds:

    hmmm I’m stumped on this one.

  29. mystery_man responds:

    Frigatebird, schmigatebird, that’s some guy up there in a flying suit contraption.:)

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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