Feilongus

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Feilongus
Fossil range: Early Cretaceous

Extinct (fossil)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Order:	Pterosauria
Suborder:	Pterodactyloidea
Superfamily:	Ctenochasmatoidea or Ornithocheiroidea
Family:	uncertain
Genus:	Feilongus

Binomial name

Feilongus youngi
Wang, Kellner, Zhou, and Campos, 2005

Feilongus (meaning "flying dragon") was a genus of ctenochasmatoid or ornithocheiroid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Beipiao, Liaoning, China. It is based on IVPP V-12539, a skull and mandible. It is notable for having two bony crests on the skull (one long and low on the beak, and one off of the rear of the skull), and for the upper jaw being 10% longer than the lower jaw, giving it a pronounced overbite. The second crest was short and rounded, and may have had a nonbony extension, now lost. The skull of the only known individual is 390-400 millimeters long (15.4-15.7 inches), and its wingspan is estimated to have been around 2.4 meters (7.9 feet), making it large for a basal pterodactyloid. The skull and lower jaws held 76 long, curved needle-like teeth, confined to the beak ends of the jaws.^[1]

Its describers considered it to be most similar to Gallodactylus, and so placed it in the Gallodactylidae, a family of ctenochasmatoids.^[1] This group of pterosaurs is known for having numerous small, thin teeth, possibly for straining food from water, as flamingos do today.^[2] However, later work suggests that this genus was closer to the ornithocheiroids,^[3] a group more adapted to soaring.^[4] A new report following this line of thought has put it and Boreopterus into a new ornithocheiroid family, the Boreopteridae.^[5]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Wang, Xiaolin; Kellner, Alexander W.K.; Zhonghe Zhou; and de Almeida Campos, Diogenes (October 2005). "Pterosaur diversity and faunal turnover in Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems in China". Nature 437: 875-879. DOI:10.1038/nature03982.
^ Unwin, David M. (2006). "A tree for pterosaurs", The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time. New York: Pi Press, 82-84. ISBN 0-13-146308-X.
^ Lü, Junchang; and Qiang Ji (2006). "Preliminary results of a phylogenetic analysis of the pterosaurs from western Liaoning and surrounding area". Journal of the Paleontological Society of Korea 22 (1): 239-261. Retrieved on 2007-03-10.
^ Unwin, David M. (2006). "A tree for pterosaurs", The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time. New York: Pi Press, 79-82. ISBN 0-13-146308-X.
^ Lü, J.; Ji, S.; Yuan, C.; and Ji, Q. (2006). Pterosaurs from China (in Chinese). Beijing: Geological Publishing House, 147 p..