You are in the lakesides of China, 135 million years ago.

The air in the Early Cretaceous was thick and humid, echoing with the calls of distant, unfamiliar dinosaurs. You stepped carefully along the shoreline of a sprawling, shallow inland lake.

The silence was suddenly broken by a sharp click-clack sound, like stones being struck together, coming from the water’s edge a few meters ahead.

Perched on a flat, limestone rock was a creature that seemed to belong more to a fantasy than to nature. It was a Dsungaripterus—a pterosaur, but unlike any graceful flyer you had imagined. A distinct, low bony crest ran from the middle of its skull toward the tip of its snout, likely a brilliant reddish-orange, standing out against its leathery brown skin. Its most striking feature, however, was its long, narrow beak curved upwards, ending in a very narrow, pointed tip—the perfect tool for extracting something from the mud.

With a quick flick of its neck, it pried a large, freshwater mussel from the ground. The shell is shifted backwards to a specialized set of blunt, rounded teeth, and soon a loud crunch of the broken outer layer is heard that reaches your ears.

Having finished its meal as it swallows the contents from inside the shell, the pterosaur turned its large, intelligent eyes directly toward you. It didn’t look panicked, perhaps used to its place as a specialized hunter, but it was vigilant, keeping a wary eye on you…