Pterodactylus is a genus of extinct pterosaurs. It is thought to contain only a single species, Pterodactylus antiquus, which was the first pterosaur to be named and identified as a flying reptile and one of the first prehistoric reptiles to ever be discovered.
Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous. Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.
Quetzalcoatlus is a genus of azhdarchid pterosaur known from the Late Cretaceous Maastrichtian age of North America. Its name comes from the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. The type species is Q. northropi, named by Douglas Lawson in 1975 after the tailless fixed-wing aircraft designer Jack Northrop. The genus also includes the smaller species Q. lawsoni, which was known for many years as an unnamed species, before being named by Brian Andres and Wann Langston Jr. (posthumously) in 2021. Q. northropi has gained fame as a candidate for the largest flying animal ever discovered.
Archosauria or archosaurs is a clade of diapsid sauropsid tetrapods, with birds and crocodilians being the only extant representatives. Although broadly classified as reptiles, which traditionally exclude birds, the cladistic sense of the term includes all living and extinct relatives of birds and crocodilians such as non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, phytosaurs, aetosaurs and rauisuchians as well as many Mesozoic marine reptiles. Modern paleontologists define Archosauria as a crown group that includes the most recent common ancestor of living birds and crocodilians, and all of its descendants.
Alfred Sherwood Romer was an American paleontologist and biologist and a specialist in vertebrate evolution.
Gregory Scott Paul is an American freelance researcher, author and illustrator who works in paleontology. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dinosaurs and his detailed illustrations, both live and skeletal. Professionally investigating and restoring dinosaurs for three decades, Paul received an on-screen credit as dinosaur specialist on Jurassic Park and Discovery Channel's When Dinosaurs Roamed America and Dinosaur Planet. He is the author and illustrator of Predatory Dinosaurs of the World (1988), The Complete Illustrated Guide to Dinosaur Skeletons (1996), Dinosaurs of the Air (2001), three editions of The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Gregory S. Paul's Dinosaur Coffee Table Book (2010), The Princeton Field Guide to Pterosaurs (2022), The Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Sea Reptiles (2022) and editor of The Scientific American Book of Dinosaurs (2000).
Darren William Naish is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author and science communicator.
Azhdarchidae is a family of pterosaurs known primarily from the Late Cretaceous Period, though an isolated vertebra apparently from an azhdarchid is known from the Early Cretaceous as well. Azhdarchids are mainly known for including some of the largest flying animals discovered, but smaller cat-size members have also been found. Originally considered a sub-family of Pteranodontidae, Nesov (1984) named the Azhdarchinae to include the pterosaurs Azhdarcho, Quetzalcoatlus, and Titanopteryx. They were among the last known surviving members of the pterosaurs, and were a rather successful group with a worldwide distribution. Previously it was thought that by the end of the Cretaceous, most pterosaur families except for the Azhdarchidae disappeared from the fossil record, but recent studies indicate a wealth of pterosaurian fauna, including pteranodontids, nyctosaurids, tapejarids and several indeterminate forms. In several analyses, some taxa such as Navajodactylus, Bakonydraco and Montanazhdarcho were moved from Azhdarchidae to other clades.
Batrachognathus is an extinct genus of anurognathid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic Karabastau Formation of the central Asian republic of Kazakhstan. The genus was named in 1948 by the Russian paleontologist Anatoly Nicolaevich Ryabinin. The type species is Batrachognathus volans. The genus name is derived from Greek batrakhos, "frog" and gnathos, "jaw", in reference to the short wide head. The specific epithet means "flying" in Latin.
Anurognathidae is a family of small, short-tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe, Asia, and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Five genera are known: Anurognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Germany; Jeholopterus, from the Middle to Late Jurassic of China; Dendrorhynchoides, from the Middle Jurassic of China; Batrachognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan; and Vesperopterylus, from the Early Cretaceous of China. Bennett (2007) suggested that the holotype of Mesadactylus, BYU 2024, a synsacrum, belonged to an anurognathid, though this affinity has been questioned by other authors. Mesadactylus is from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the United States. Indeterminate anurognathid remains have also been reported from the Middle Jurassic Bakhar Svita of Mongolia and the Early Cretaceous of North Korea.
Peteinosaurus was a prehistoric genus of pterosaur. It lived in the late Triassic period in the late Norian age, and at a wingspan of around 60 cm (24 in), was one of the smallest and earliest pterosaurs, although other estimates suggest a wingspan of up to 1 m (3.3 ft).
Paleoart is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depictions of the living creatures and their ecosystems. While paleoart is typically defined as being scientifically informed, it is often the basis of depictions of prehistoric animals in popular culture, which in turn influences public perception of and fuels interest in these organisms. The word paleoart is also used in an informal sense as a name for prehistoric art, most often cave paintings.
Edwin Harris "Ned" Colbert was a distinguished American vertebrate paleontologist and prolific researcher and author.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to dinosaurs:
Cosesaurus is a genus of archosauromorph reptiles likely belonging to the family Tanystropheidae. It is known from fossil imprints of a single small skeleton, MGB V1, which was found in Muschelkalk outcrops near the municipalities of Mont-ral and Alcover in Spain. These outcrops are dated to the Ladinian age of the middle Triassic about 242 to 237 million years ago. The specimen is stored at the Museu Martorell, which is now part of the Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona. The poor preservation and likely juvenile nature of the specimen has led to the anatomy of Cosesaurus being misidentified by several different sources. For example, Paul Ellenberger claimed that it was an ancestor to birds in the 1970s, while David Peters claimed that it was a pterosaur ancestor in 2000. Both of these claims contrast with mainstream scientific theories on the origins of either group, and other paleontologists who study the specimen are unable to find the features which Ellenberger or Peters reported to be present. The Ellenberger and Peters hypotheses are thus considered fringe theories with questionable scientific soundness due to their low reproducibility. Mainstream hypotheses for the relations of Cosesaurus generally agree that it is a "protorosaur", specifically a tanystropheid closely related to long-necked reptiles such as Macrocnemus, Tanytrachelos, Tanystropheus, or Langobardisaurus.
Samrukia is a genus of large Cretaceous pterosaurs known only from a single lower jaw discovered in Kazakhstan. The holotype and only known specimen was collected from the Santonian-Campanian age Bostobynskaya Formation in Kyzylorda District. It was described by Darren Naish, Gareth Dyke, Andrea Cau, François Escuillié, and Pascal Godefroit in 2012, and the type species is named Samrukia nessovi. The species is named after Lev Nessov, a paleontologist, and the genus is named after Samruk, a magical bird of Kazakh folklore.
Pteranodontoidea is an extinct clade of ornithocheiroid pterosaurs from the Early to Late Cretaceous of Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America. It was named by Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in 1996. In 2003, Kellner defined the clade as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of Anhanguera, Pteranodon and all its descendants. The clade Ornithocheiroidea is sometimes considered to be the senior synonym of Pteranodontoidea, however it depends on its definition. Brian Andres in his analyses, converts Ornithocheiroidea using the definition of Kellner (2003) to avoid this synonymy.
This timeline of pterosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of pterosaurs, the famed flying reptiles of the Mesozoic era. Although pterosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans evolved, humans have coexisted with pterosaur fossils for millennia. Before the development of paleontology as a formal science, these remains would have been interpreted through a mythological lens. Myths about thunderbirds told by the Native Americans of the modern Western United States may have been influenced by observations of Pteranodon fossils. These thunderbirds were said to have warred with water monsters, which agrees well with the co-occurrence of Pteranodon and the ancient marine reptiles of the seaway over which it flew.
The dinosauroid is a hypothetical species created by Dale A. Russell in 1982. Russell theorized that if a dinosaur such as Stenonychosaurus had not perished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, its descendants might have evolved to fill the same ecological niche as humans. While the theory has been met with criticism from other scientists, the dinosauroid has been featured widely in books and documentaries since the theory's inception.
