Alphabet Animals: The Letter Q (Extinct)

In our last post, we looked at some extant, or still living (as opposed to extinct) animals whose name begins with the letter "Q."  Today, we are going to look at a few more of these animals, but this time we are going to be looking at some of those extinct animals!  Let's go, team!

1.  Quetzalcoatlus - One of the largest flying animals of all time, Quetzalcoatlus is not a dinosaur like it is often thought to be.  Instead, Quetzalcoatlus is a memeber of a distinct group of archosaurs (a large groups of reptiles that includes crocodilians and dinosaurs) called the pterosaurs.  Quetzalcoatlus lived in the Late Cretaceous Period of North America, between around 68-65 MYA.

2.  Qantassaurus - A small Australian ornithopod, Qantassaurus was named by paleontologist-couple Patricia Vickers-Rich and Tom Rich after the Australian airline Qantas.  Qantassaurus lived about 115 MYA, when Australia was still a little south of the Antarctic Circle!

3.  Qiaowanlong - A sauropod dinosaur from Yujinzi Basin of Gansu, China, Qiaowanlong was first discovered in 2007, and lived about 100 MYA in the Early Cretaceous Period.

4.  Quagga - An extinct subspecies of the plains zebra, the quagga was once found in the Karoo of South Africa, and was the first extinct creature to have its DNA studied by scientists.  The quagga was actually hunted to extinction by humans: the last wild one is thought to have been shot in the late 1870s, while the last specimen ever known to have existed died on August 12, 1883 at a zoo in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

5. Qingxiusaurus - Described in 2008, Qingxiusaurus is yet another sauropod dinosaur whose name begins with a "Q."  Like Qiaowanlong, Qingxiusaurus was also found in China.  Qingxiusaurus lived much later than Qiaowanlong, however, in the Late Cretaceous Period.

6.  Qiupalong - An ornithomimosaur, or ostrich dinosaur, Qiupalong lived during the Late Cretaceous Period of China, and is the first ornithomimosaur that is definitively known from outside the Gobi Desert in Asia.

7.  Quaesitosaurus - With a name meaning "extraordinary lizard," Quaesitosaurus lived between around 85 and 70 MYA in Mongolia.  It was first discovered in 1983, and its skull was likened to that of a horse.

8.  Quilmesaurus - Native to Argentina during the Late Cretaceous Period, not a lot is known about Quilmesaurus.  It is estimated to have been between around 16 - 20 feet long.

9.  Qinlingosaurus - Yet another Late Cretaceous Asian sauropod, Qinlingosaurus was named after the Qinling Mountains of China in 1996.