Like spokes on a bicycle wheel ...

An artist’s rendering of a pterosaur, whose complex neck structure has no parallel elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Credit...Williams et al., iScience

Like spokes on a bicycle wheel, the necks of pterosaurs are unlike anything else seen in science.

The results, published on Wednesday in the journal iScience, stunned Ms. Williams and her colleagues. The animal’s neck was revealed to be scaffolded by a unique and complex network of helical struts connecting a central neural tube to the vertebra wall like the spokes of a bicycle. It was a structure that has no parallel elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

Which means ...

A biomechanical analysis of the intricate structure of the neck revealed that the spokelike filaments bolstered the vertebrae against the pressures of catching and carrying heavy prey. According to the team’s calculations, the addition of only 50 struts increased by 90 percent the weight that they could bear without buckling, enabling this particular specimen to carry loads of up to 24 pounds, which Ms. Williams called “really impressive.”

The Pterosaur, amazing flyer without question.