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| Liaoningopterus Fossil range: Early Cretaceous |
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L. gui Wang & Zhou, 2003 (type) |
Liaoningopterus (meaning "Liaoning wing"), sometimes misspelled Liaoningopteryx, was a genus of ornithocheirid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Chaoyang, Liaoning, China. It is based on IVPP V-13291, a partial skull and skeleton including the jaws, teeth, cervical vertebrae, and the finger supporting the wing. It was a large pterosaur (the largest known from China at the time of description, with a skull length estimated at 61 cm (24 in), wingspan estimated at 5 m (16.4 ft)), with a long low skull bearing crests at the tip of the beak on both lower and upper jaws, teeth only found at the anterior end of the jaws, and very large teeth (the largest for any pterosaur). The authors described it as probably a piscivore, due to the long, pointed snout.[1] If Anhangueridae is considered to be a separate family, it would have been an anhanguerid.[2]
References
- ^ Wang X.-L. and Zhou Z.-H. (2003). Two new pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Early Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Western Liaoning, China. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 41(1):34-41.
- ^ Xiaolin Wang, Kellner, A.W.K., Zhonghe Zhou, and de Almeida Campos, D. (2005). Pterosaur diversity and faunal turnover in Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems in China. Nature 437:875-879.
External links
- Liaoningopterus in The Pterosaur Database
- Liaoningopterus in The Pterosauria
