Sinopterus Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓Fossil gut contents from a Sinopterus specimen contain plant material, making it one of the very few pterosaurs where scientists have direct physical proof of what it ate, not just guesswork.
• ✓Sinopterus was named in 2003 by Chinese paleontologists Wang Xiaolin and Zhou Zhonghe from fossils found in the famous Jiufotang Formation, the same fossil-rich rock layer that gave us the feathered dinosaur Microraptor.
• ✓At least five species were originally assigned to Sinopterus over the years, but modern analysis found most of them actually belonged to other genera, leaving only one species, Sinopterus dongi, as truly valid.
• ✓Sinopterus belongs to the family Tapejaridae, a group of crested pterosaurs that were especially common in what is now Brazil and China, suggesting these continents may have been connected by migration routes 113 million years ago.
• ✓The bony crest of Sinopterus started at the very tip of its upper jaw, called the premaxilla, and swept back in a tall arc to overhang the rear of the skull, meaning the crest covered nearly the entire length of its head from front to back.