
The Largest Flying Creatures - DrSheldon
http://www.the-dialogue.com/en/en71-the-largest-flying-creatures/
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jessaustin
_The largest flying creatures were pterosaurs. They, in turn, are reptiles or
tetrapods, which makes them similar to dinosaurs and their modern
representatives: crocodiles, lizards, and snakes._

Current understanding has pterosaurs as avemetatarsalians, just like dinosaurs
and birds, and unlike crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.

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sgtpepper43
Exactly, the largest flying creature was basically still a bird.

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partycoder
Largest flying birds are right now are:

\- In the west it's the Andean Condor

\- Globally, the african Kori Bustard.

Now, birds can be tough. The prime example is the conflict between the
Australian Army (including the Royal Australian Artillery) and 20,000 emus
known as the Great Emu War. The outcome was a decisive Emu victory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War)

Some people argue that this was not a conflict as it is frivolous to consider
Emus as a military force.

However the fact they were capable of the formidable achievement of defeating
a regular army proves they can, and this is also not the first conflict
involving animals (e.g:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombe_Chimpanzee_War)).

Note that emus cannot fly.

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Razengan
Slightly off-topic, but I imagine there must be a world with balloon-like
leviathans serenely floating through the sky like our airships, hosting mini-
ecosystems on their bodies and under their shadows..

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kwhitefoot
See Fred Pohl's Jem.

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cgh
And Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident".

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nabla9
And Iain M. Banks "The Algebraist"

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pault
Pretty much any Culture novel will contain at least one reference to dirigible
creatures. :)

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nabla9
Culture novels have Dirigible Behemothaurs and the The Algebraist has
Dwellers. Two big floating lifeforms. Dirigibles live in airspaces and
Dwellers in gas giants.

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dominotw
>lungfishes can live on land without any problems.

this lungfish gif blew my mind when I first saw it

[https://i.imgur.com/JKndVbn.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/JKndVbn.gifv)

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nthcolumn
Was this written by an AI?

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evincarofautumn
Based on the grammatical peculiarities, I’d guess Slavs, not AIs.

Edit: yup, “Our languages: Belarusian, English, Russian, Ukrainian.”
[http://www.the-dialogue.com/en/about/](http://www.the-dialogue.com/en/about/)

