#jidapterus

By Joschua Knüppe, retrieved from http://www.pteros.com/, a website dedicated to education about Pterosaurs.

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Name: Jidapterus edentus

Name Meaning: Jilin University Wing 

First Described: 2003

Described By: Dong, Sun & Wu

Classification: Avemetatarsalia, Ornithodira, Pterosauromorpha, Pterosauria, Macronychoptera, Novialoidea, Breviquartossa, Pterodactylomorpha, Monofenestrata, Pterodactyliformes, Caelidracones, Pterodactyloidea, Eupterodactyloidea, Ornithocheiroidea, Azhdarchoidea, Neoazhdarchia, Neopterodactyloidea, Chaoyangopteridae

Jidapterus is another Chaoyangopterid, from the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, China, living about 122 million years ago, in the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous. It is known from most of the skeleton and its large skull, which shows that it had a toothless and long beak as well as large cavities in its head that made it lighter and connected the nostril with the rest of the skull’s airways. It was a little small, with a wingspan of only about 1.7 meters in length, and it probably ate small vertebrates on the ground, grabbing them out of the forest floor with its long pointed beak. 

Sources:

http://www.pteros.com/pterosaurs/jidapterus.html