A giant flying reptile the size of a plane may have been the largest and most feared predator in ancient Transylvania. After examining the enormous neck vertebrae of a creature called Hatzegopteryx– a pterosaur with a 32–foot wingspan and giant beak– researchers now believe it was a fierce carnivore that preyed on dinosaurs and other animals in Romania during the Cretaceous period.

“We've suspected that some giant pterosaurs were terrestrial foragers for a while now, but the idea that one could be a stocky, powerful apex predator is not something anyone would have predicted even a few years ago,” study author Dr. Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth told Fox News. “Indeed, it wasn't that long ago that the idea of a pterosaur occupying a dominant ecological role would have been laughable!”