Tapejara
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Tapejara (from a Tupi meaning "the old being") is a genus of Brazilian pterosaur from the Cretaceous Period. The Tapejara genus showed wide diversity in size, and each species bore a differntly sized/shaped crest that may have been used to signal and display for other Tapejara, much as toucans use their bright bills to signal to one another. Tapejara crests usually consisted of a semicircular crest over the snout, and a bony prong whch extended back behind the head (though T. navigans lacked this prong). The largest species, T. imperator, sported another long, thin prong that extended from the snout crest. Soft tissue impressons show that in T. imperator and T. navigans (and probably T. wellnhoferi as well), these two distinct prongs supported an even larger crest made of a keratinous material. In T. imperator, the complete crest joined the fore and aft bony prongs. Even in T. navigans, which lacked bony prongs almost entirely, the full crest rose in a sharp, sail-like "dome" high above the rest of the skull.
[edit] In popular culture
Tapejara navigans appeared in an episode of the BBC television series Walking With Dinosaurs. Interestingly, though the series was released in 1999, T navigans was not formally described and named until 2003.
[edit] References
- In the Sky (Dinosaurs) (Library Binding) (ISBN 0-8368-2918-2)
