Nyctosaurus
| Nyctosaurus | ||||||||||||
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Nyctosaurus , live reconstruction |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Cretaceous ( Coniacium to Maastrichtian ) | ||||||||||||
| 89.7 to 66 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Nyctosauridae | ||||||||||||
| Williston , 1903 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Nyctosaurus | ||||||||||||
| Marsh , 1876 |
Nyctosaurus ("night lizard") was a short-tailed pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea) from the Upper Cretaceous in North America . Fossils of nyctosaurus were in the Niobrara formation in Kansas in the United States found, but are much less common than that of the related Pteranodon . During the Cretaceous Period , the area was covered by a large, shallow sea, the Western Interior Seaway . From the late Cretaceous period of Brazil comes a single, incompletely preserved humerus bone that isassigned to Nyctosaurus . Other similarly old finds have comedown to usfrom the Ouled Abdoun Basin in Morocco , but they are referred to other generawith Alcione , Simurghia and Barbaridactylus .
features
The type species Nyctosaurus gracilis had an enormously elongated occipital ridge. Some scientists suggest that this comb may have supported a skin sail that was important for flight stability when fishing. Nyctosaurus had a wingspan of 2.4 to 2.9 meters. Its flying finger did not consist of four, like the other pterosaurs, but only three limbs. Like Pteranodon , Nyctosaurus was toothless. His skull reached a length of 30 cm without a bone crest.
species
- Nyctosaurus gracilis , Kansas
- Nyctosaurus lamegoi , Brazil
- Nyctosaurus sp. from New Mexico
literature
- Peter Wellnhofer : The illustrated encyclopedia of pterosaurs. Crescent Books, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-517-03701-7 .
- David M. Unwin: The Pterosaurs. From deep time. PI Press, New York NY 2006, ISBN 0-13-146308-X .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nicholas R. Longrich, David M. Martill and Brian Andres: Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. PLoS Biology 16 (3), 2018, p. E2001663, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pbio.2001663
