Texas Tech Paleontologist Contributes to Flying Drone Design Based on Prehistoric Flying Reptile

A Texas Tech University curator and an aeronautical engineer from the University of Florida have developed a 30-inch robotic spy plane modeled after a 225 million-year-old pterodactyl.

The drone, featuring a strange design of a rudder at the nose of the craft instead of the tail, would gather data from sights, sounds and smells in urban combat zones and transmit information back to a command center.

This concept will be presented on Tuesday (Oct. 7) at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Houston.

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