Narrator in “Giant of the Skies”

Our Ornithocheirus has yet to mate. Worse still, his fruitless exertions under the blazing sun have taken a heavy toll. Heat stress and lack of food have all but killed him. The king of the skies has lost his majesty.

[Later, the old male lies dead on the shore]

His life has run full circle. In his time he travelled the globe, but death finds him here, in the very same place where he first mated, some 40 years ago. On the beach around him are others who lost out in this struggle to reproduce.

[A young Ornithocheirus feeds on the old male's carcass]

But nature is seldom wasteful. They have become food for the next generation.