GEL 12 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Pterosaur, Pterodactyloidea, Tupuxuara
1. What are pterosaurs—features, time, and space?
a. Pterosauria: wing lizard
i. Long or short tail without much muscle
ii. Covered with hairs
iii. Short torso
1. Fused backbones of torso (notation) in derived forms
iv. Came in the triassic, near italy area and eventually spread to north
america
1. Distributed everywhere by the cretaceous period
2. High diversity in triassic and jurassic and highest in cretaceous
2. What are the major groups of pterosaurs?
a. Macronychoptera had long tails
b. Pterodactyloidea had short tails
1. Basal forms, small triassic
2. Intermediate forms, small, mostly jurassic
3. Basal ptyerodactyls, largely jurassic
4. Derived pterodactyls, include giants, cretaceous
c. Basal forms: Late Triassic
i. Had teeth good for eating insects
ii. Used trees to help them fly
d. Intermediate forms
i. Rhamphorynchus
ii. Eating at night
iii. Slender wing bones
iv. Leather structure on the tail
1. Good for balancing body in the air
v. Only have pointed teeth
1. Probably more fish eaters than insect eaters
vi. Most of them had long snouts, but some had shorter ones
vii. Hair on the body probably
e. Basal pterodactyls
i. Smaller species (pterodactylus)
f. Derived pterodactyls
i. Pteranodon, wing without teeth
1. Wingspan up to 25 feet
2. Late Cretaceous
3. Optimized for flying
ii. Anhanguera
1. from south america
2. Early cretaceous
3. Kept the teeth
iii. Tupuxuara and tapejara
1. Grew crests above the beak with different colors
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
