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A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA

Pterosaurs were widespread during the Late Cretaceous, but their fossils are comparatively rare in terrestrial depositional environments. A large pterosaur bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian, ~76–74 Ma) of southern Utah, USA, is tentatively identified as an ulna, although its phylog...

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Autor principal: Farke, Andrew A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7825364/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33552741
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10766
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author Farke, Andrew A.
author_facet Farke, Andrew A.
author_sort Farke, Andrew A.
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description Pterosaurs were widespread during the Late Cretaceous, but their fossils are comparatively rare in terrestrial depositional environments. A large pterosaur bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian, ~76–74 Ma) of southern Utah, USA, is tentatively identified as an ulna, although its phylogenetic placement cannot be precisely constrained beyond Pterosauria. The element measures over 36 cm in preserved maximum length, indicating a comparatively large individual with an estimated wingspan between 4.3 and 5.9 m, the largest pterosaur yet reported from the Kaiparowits Formation. This size estimate places the individual at approximately the same wingspan as the holotype for Cryodrakon boreas from the penecontemporaneous Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. Thus, relatively large pterosaurs occurred in terrestrial ecosystems in both the northern and southern parts of Laramidia (western North America) during the late Campanian.
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spelling pubmed-78253642021-02-04 A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA Farke, Andrew A. PeerJ Evolutionary Studies Pterosaurs were widespread during the Late Cretaceous, but their fossils are comparatively rare in terrestrial depositional environments. A large pterosaur bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian, ~76–74 Ma) of southern Utah, USA, is tentatively identified as an ulna, although its phylogenetic placement cannot be precisely constrained beyond Pterosauria. The element measures over 36 cm in preserved maximum length, indicating a comparatively large individual with an estimated wingspan between 4.3 and 5.9 m, the largest pterosaur yet reported from the Kaiparowits Formation. This size estimate places the individual at approximately the same wingspan as the holotype for Cryodrakon boreas from the penecontemporaneous Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. Thus, relatively large pterosaurs occurred in terrestrial ecosystems in both the northern and southern parts of Laramidia (western North America) during the late Campanian. PeerJ Inc. 2021-01-20 /pmc/articles/PMC7825364/ /pubmed/33552741 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10766 Text en © 2021 Farke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Studies
Farke, Andrew A.
A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
title A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
title_full A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
title_fullStr A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
title_full_unstemmed A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
title_short A large pterosaur limb bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian) of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah, USA
title_sort large pterosaur limb bone from the kaiparowits formation (late campanian) of grand staircase-escalante national monument, utah, usa
topic Evolutionary Studies
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7825364/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33552741
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10766
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