A NEW LOWER CRETACEOUS SINOPTERID PTEROSAUR FROM THE WESTERN LIAONING,CHINA
2003; Paleontological Society of China; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0001-6616
Autores Tópico(s)Ichthyology and Marine Biology
ResumoPterosaurs are special flying reptiles. They are difficult to be preserved as fossils, due to their hollow and very thin bones. They were often found from marine and lagoonal sediments, such as the Solnhofen Limestone of Germany, the Santana Formation of Brazil, and the Cambridge Greensand of England (Unwin, 2001). They were seldom found from terrestrial deposits. Recently, five genera of pterosaurs found from western Liaoning and its peripheral areas have been reported, they are Eosipterus (Ji and Ji, 1997), Dendrorhynchoides (Ji and Ji, 1998; Ji et al ., 1999; see Unwin et al ., 2000), Haopterus (Wang and Lu, 2001), Jeholopterus (Wang et al ., 2002), and Sinopterus (Wang and Zhou, 2002). Some beautifully preserved skeletons with soft tissues and impressions (Wang et al ., 2002; Lu, 2002) provide important information on the study of the distribution, evolution and ecology of pterosaurs. This area may become the first pterosaur locality, in which more specimens are found from terrestrial deposits than Mongolia (Bakhurina and Unwin, 1995; Unwin et al ., 1997; Unwin and Bakhurina, 2000; Unwin et al ., 2000). Herein a small pterodactyloid pterosaur is described. It is the smallest toothless pterosaur found from the Jiufotang Formation so far.
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