Tapejaroidea

Pterodactyloidea is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs, and contains the most derived members of this group of flying reptiles. They appeared during the middle Jurassic Period, and differ from the basal rhamphorhynchoids by their short tails and long wing metacarpals. The most advanced forms also lack teeth, and by the late Cretaceous, all known pterodactyloids were toothless. Many species had well-developed crests on the skull, a form of display taken to extremes in giant-crested forms like Nyctosaurus and Tupandactylus. Pterodactyloids were the last surviving pterosaurs when the order became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, together with the non-avian dinosaurs and most marine reptiles.

Tapejaroidea

régine debatty Public domain (uploaded by User:Gadfium ) Helder da Rocha User:Ghedoghedo User:Ghedoghedo Henk Caspers… · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
NeoazhdarchiaPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Pterosauria
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pterosauria

Time the record covers

At least 42 million years on record.

The record covers at least 143.1 Mya to 100.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 149.2 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 30 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 27 of 30 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 30 occurrencesLate Cretaceous151–148 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences148–145 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences145–143 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences143–140 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences140–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–135 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences135–132 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences132–129 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences129–127 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127–124 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences124–121 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 5 occurrences119–116 Mya — about 10 occurrences116–113 Mya — about 10 occurrences113–111 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences111–108 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences108–105 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105–103 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences103–100 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences100–97 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences97–95 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences95–92 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences89–87 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences87–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–79 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences79–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–73 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences143.1 Mya100.5 Mya151 Mya71 Mya

30 occurrences of Tapejaroidea on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

30 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

7 formations

Romualdo — 7.18°S, 39.73°WRomualdo — 7.22°S, 39.27°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WCrato — 7.00°S, 39.00°WJiufotang — 41.43°N, 120.04°EJiufotang — 41.57°N, 120.44°EJiufotang — 41.53°N, 120.18°EÖösh — 44.24°N, 102.73°ETendaguru — 9.70°S, 39.23°EGoio-Erê — 26.78°S, 53.06°WWessex — 50.66°N, 1.13°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Tapejaroidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Tapejaroidea and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Tapejaroidea and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

111 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Tapejaroidea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

28 references

Each of the 30 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 16 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Tapejaroidea

Credit
régine debatty Public domain (uploaded by User:Gadfium ) Helder da Rocha User:Ghedoghedo User:Ghedoghedo Henk Caspers…
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tapejaroidea was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Kellner 1989)