Zhenyuanopterus

Name: Zhenyuanopterus (Zhenyuan wing).
Phonetic: Zen-yoo-an-op-teh-rus
Named By: Lü Jungchang - 2010.
Classification: Chordata, Sauropsida, Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea, Ornithocheiroidea, Boreopteridae.
Species: Z. longirostris (type).
Type: Carnivore/Piscivore.
Size: About 4 meter wingspan.
Known locations: China, Liaoning Province.
Time period: Early Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Well preserved specimen.

       The jaws of Zhenyuanopterus feature long needle like teeth that protrude out of the jaws and intermesh when the mouth is closed. The largest teeth are at the front, although they get significantly smaller as they approach the nostril. Some have considered the larger teeth at the front to have been too fragile to cope with struggling larger and more powerful prey, and as such Zhenyuanopterus may have focused upon smaller fish.
       Zhenyuanopterus also had extremely tiny feet. There is also what remains of a low crest that rises up from the top of the skull from just before the nostril to roughly half way over the antorbital fenestra.

Further reading
- A boreopterid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, northeastern China. - Acta Geologica Sinica (English Edition) 84(2):241-246. - J. Lü - 2010.

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