How to Fight Quetzalcoatlus

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Quetzalcoatalus was one of many dinosaurs that could have kicked your ass. This is a pretty large group of species overall. You know those fat-bottomed-looking things with duck bills, hadrosaurs? Even those could kick your ass. The list of things that could not have kicked your ass between the late Carboniferous era and the end of the Cretaceous was probably a lot shorter than the list of things that could.

What makes Quetzalcoatalus special among the list of extinct things that could kick your ass was the fact that it could probably have done so from above. Quetzalcoatalus was a species of pterosaur large enough to eat two of you for breakfast. It might very well have been the largest living thing ever to fly.

Lets say that a group of human beings and their stuff has been transported back in time 67 million years ago to an area of North America full of quetzalcoatali. You are among them. When you leave your cabin in the morning to walk around in the wild, what would you want to carry with you to deal with any quetzalcoatalus that shows up to interfere with your plans for the day?

I spend a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing.


Quetzalcoatalus probably fed while on the ground, in spite of its incredible wingspan (nearly equal to many fighter jets). Darren Naish (in whom I place great trust) has said that he believes quetzalcoatalus fed on all fours, walking around like a marabou or a great blue heron. Stabbing down with its powerful beak at smaller vertebrates (like you) that move through the undergrowth.

Yet what would this enormous pterosaur have done if it saw easy prey walking around in the open? Something like a big hairless ape? I imagine that this big SOB would have swooped down and grabbed one of us up in its beak and swallowed.


What you want in this situation is a 10 gauge shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot.

Shotguns go the other way that you might expect. The bigger the gauge, the smaller the gun. 'Gauge' refers to how many balls of lead can be made from a pound of lead for a given diameter barrel. A 20 gauge can shoot 20 balls of lead from a pound, while a 12 gauge has 12 balls of lead from a pound.

The 10 gauge is the largest and most powerful shotgun chambering currently in production. Even at that, it is a rare thing. A few people use it for long shots on geese. Ammunition is available, but few people use it. For those who expect to be dropped into North America 67 million years ago, the 10 gauge might be just about right.

The scenario is thus: You are standing on an open plain and the distant shadow of a quetzalcoatalus in the sky banks toward you. It gains altitude and comes up into the sun where you have trouble looking right at it. As you squint, the great reptile dives toward you. That distant black dot grows bigger and bigger. At what point do you pull the trigger and what will do the job?

I think that a shotgun is the obvious tool. You need to hit a moving target as it comes toward you, using a weapon and ammunition that you can actually carry. Clearly a shotgun is the tool designed for the job. And you will certainly be wanting the most powerful shotgun available off-the-shelf, which would be a 10 gauge.

Will it be a pump, a semi-auto, an over-and-under, or a side-by-side? I don't think it matters in the slightest. Because you'll only be getting one shot.

The point of using a shotgun in this situation is to send a cloud of moving projectiles ahead to intersect with a moving target. The idea is that at least a few of the projectiles will intersect with the target. So solid slugs are out -- that would defeat the purpose. You will probably be using '00', or 'double ought' buckshot. Big projectiles that still come about 9 to a shell.

Your target will be more specific than just 'that quetzalcoatalus coming right for me.' Its a big enough animal that you will need to focus on one particular part of it. But what?

There are two schools of thought that could apply here. First is the idea that you only need to turn the charge. That any painful hit will make the predator think about something other than food and will result in it stopping the dive toward you in favor of flying somewhere else. If this works then probably the wings would be good to aim for. The wings are broad and easy to hit and a successful shot will change the predator's aerodynamics right away. If discouragement is the goal then a wing shot will do the job.

To punch reliably through the leathery wings of a quetzalcoatalus, I think that you need to pull the trigger when the big pterosaur is no more than about 100 yards away. Buskshot loses velocity very quickly. If all you need to do is punch through some skin then you should be able to do that at 100 yards, but don't expect any more damage than that.

If a simple stinging pass-through won't reliably change quetzalcoatalus' mind then you will have to wait for an even closer shot. Either a head or neck shot should kill the animal as it flies.

Quetzalcoatalus was lightly built compared to land-based predators. Like animals, its skeleton was designed for light weight in order to remain air-borne, rather than made to present a tough mass. This guy won't be bullet-proof once you get through the skin. Less resistance than a whitetail deer, probably. A shot within 40 yards should pass completely through the target. Lead the head just a bit as it comes in, and you should make either a head shot or a neck shot. I think that either would be an instant kill.

Yet here is the scary thing: you probably don't get a second shot. Maybe you get a second shot if your first was at the wing (which is banking on the pterosaur's attitude as much as anything). But as fast as this thing would probably be coming in once you first pulled the trigger at anything nearer than 100 yards, I think that by the time you come out of the recoil its all over. Either you're dead or the quetzalcoatalus is dead. Maybe both of you.

This is why the action type doesn't much matter. Maybe a double barrel would be best for the same reason that professional dangerous game hunters favor double rifles; that second shot is right there already without the delay of a fraction of a second, with total reliability.

In my estimation this is a prehistoric creature which modern humans may or may not be able to take on. Your odds would at least be better than you would find in a fight against a T. Rex.

[This is one more piece in an occasional series on how to hunt prehistorical or theoretical beasts].