Tag: non-pterodactyloid

Wukongopterus

A colored line drawing of Wukongopterus, an extinct pterosaur, standing on all fours facing forwards with its head and tail raised, and a slightly squinty expression to its one visible eye that gives it the impression of being disapproving. It has long triangular jaws lined with tiny sharp teeth, a large semicircular crest along the top of its head, and a fairly long thick neck, a small fuzzy body, and a long tail ending in a multi-lobed vane. Its wings fingers are folded up against its arms and its flight membrane is mostly contracted. It's colored orange-brown with a pale underside, with darker stripes and yellow splotches, and a red eyespot-like marking on its crest.
Wukongopterus lii (crest version 1)
A colored line drawing of Wukongopterus, an extinct pterosaur, standing on all fours facing forwards with its head and tail raised, and a slightly squinty expression to its one visible eye that gives it the impression of being disapproving. It has long triangular jaws lined with tiny sharp teeth, a semicircular crest on the top of the front of its snout, and a fairly long thick neck, a small fuzzy body, and a long tail ending in a multi-lobed vane. Its wings fingers are folded up against its arms and its flight membrane is mostly contracted. It's colored orange-brown with a pale underside, with darker stripes and yellow splotches, and a red eyespot-like marking on its crest.
Wukongopterus lii (crest version 2)

Wukongopterus lii was a pterosaur that lived during the mid-to-late Jurassic, about 164 million years ago, in what is now northeastern China. It was fairly small, with a wingspan of around 70cm (~2’4″), and showed a mixture of anatomical features in-between the long-tailed short-headed ‘rhamphorhynchoids‘ and the short-tailed long-headed pterodactyloids.

Its long jaws were lined with tiny pointed conical teeth, suggesting it was adapted for primarily feeding on insects. It also had a very slight overbite, with the first two pairs of teeth in its upper jaw protruding almost vertically over the end of its lower jaw.

As a fully mature adult it would have had a low bony crest on its head that probably supported a larger cartilaginous structure – similar to other known wukongopterids – although the exact size and shape is unknown since the one confirmed specimen of Wukongopterus is missing that particular part of its skull. Another fossil nicknamed “Ian” may represent a second individual of this species, showing a different crest arrangement further forward on its snout, so I’ve made two different versions of today’s image to reflect that possibility.

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Caelestiventus

Caelestiventus hanseni, a pterosaur from the Late Triassic of Utah, USA. Living about 208-210 million years ago, it was very closely related to Dimorphodon – but unlike its younger coastal-dwelling relative it instead lived in a desert environment made up of a massive sand dune sea with occasional interdunal lakes.

It’s the earliest known example of a desert pterosaur, over 60 million years older than other examples, suggesting that even fairly early in their evolutionary history these flying animals had already adapted to a much wider range of habitats than previously thought.

Although only known from a partial skull and a single wing bone, it was probably one of the largest Triassic pterosaurs with a wingspan of over 1.5m (4′11″). It had a “keel” on its lower jaw that may have supported a soft-tissue crest or a pelican-like throat pouch, and there were several different types of teeth in its mouth – large pointed fangs at the front, “leaf-shaped” blades further back in its upper jaw, and numerous much smaller teeth along its lower jaw.

The skull roof also preserved the impression of Caelestiventus’ brain shape, showing that it had very well-developed vision but a poor sense of smell.

Caviramus

Caviramus schesaplanensis, a pterosaur from the Late Triassic of Switzerland (~205 mya). Known from two fossil specimens – a partial jaw and a much more complete skull and skeleton – it was about the size of a modern raven, with a length of around 60cm (2′) and a wingspan of 1.35m (4′5″).

(The more complete fossil is also sometimes considered to be a separate genus and species, Raeticodactylus filisurensis, depending on which pterosaur specialist you ask. If it was a different animal it still would have been very closely related to Caviramus, though, and the two would likely have looked very similar to each other.)

It had some odd anatomy for an early pterosaur, with proportionally long and slender limbs and a fairly heavily-built skull. There were bony crests on both its upper and lower jaws, with the upper crest probably supporting a much larger soft-tissue structure.

Powerful jaw muscles along with a combination of fang-like teeth at the front of its jaws and and serrated slicing-chewing teeth further back suggest it was specialized for eating particularly tough foods such as hard-shelled invertebrates – and it may even have been omnivorous, capable of eating plant matter as well.