The Last Southern Giants of Big Bend Texas. The logo artwork for the 2018 National Fossil Day features three giants of the Late Cretaceous of southwestern Texas, 69 million years ago. In the foreground, getting ready to take flight from the river, is one of the largest known flying organisms, the pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus northropi. In the middle ground, another Quetzalcoatlus stands its ground against a large tyrannosaur dinosaur. In the background, examples of the early broadleaf tree Javelinoxylon can be seen on the far shore of the river. In 1971, University of Texas–Austin graduate student Douglas A. Lawson discovered the first Quetzalcoatlus fossils from the Javelina Formation in Big Bend National Park. These fossils consisted of bones to a partial wing of a gigantic flying reptile, or pterosaur. Lawson named Quetzalcoatlus northropi after the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, and John Knudsen Northrop, the founder of the avionic manufacturing company Northrop.
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