Dsungaripterus - (pronounced JUNG-gah-RIP-ter-us)

Dsungaripterus (meaning: Wing of Junggar Basin) was a pterosaur with a wingspan of 3 metres (10 feet). It lived during the Early Cretaceous, ranging from China, where the first fossils were found in the Junngar Basin, to Africa, where more remains have been found. It was not a dinosaur, but a type of extinct, flying reptile. Dsungaripterus fossils have been found in China where it was named by Young in 1964.

 

They were lightly built with wide leathery wings, hollow bones, long, curved necks, long skulls and small bodies. They had large brains and very good eyesight. It had a low, bony crest that ran down from the base of the skull to halfway to the beak. Including it's neck, Dsungaripterus's head and neck was almost a metre long. Its most notable feature was its long, narrow, up curved jaws with a pointed tip, making the animal look like a pair of flying tweezers. It had no teeth in the front part of its jaws, which were probably used to remove shellfish and worms from cracks in rocks and the sandy, muddy beaches it inhabited. It had flat teeth at the back of the jaws, probably for crushing the shells of its prey.

Dsungaripterus wings were covered by a leathery membrane. This thin but tough membrane stretched between its body, the top of its legs and its elongated fourth fingers, forming the structure of the wing. Claws protruded from the other fingers.

Dsungaripterus was a carnivore and probably ate fish (which it caught at the surface of the oceans), mollusks, crabs, plankton (for some species), insects and scavenged dead animals on land.

Dsungaripterus was a pterodactyloid. By definition, all dinosaurs were diapsid reptiles with an upright stance. Pterosaurs probably had a semi-upright stance. There is a small minority of paleontologists who think that the pterosaurs' stance could have been upright and that pterosaurs should therefore be included in the clade of dinosaurs (being derived theropods). Either way, dinosaurs and pterosaurs are certainly closely related.

The birds evolved during the Jurassic period and were probably competition for the pterodactyloids, including Dsungaripterus.

Scientific Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Sauropsida

Order: Pterosauria

Suborder: Pterodactyloidea

Family: Dsungaripteridae

Genus: Dsungaripterus