Tupuxuara

Tupuxuara is a genus of thalassodromid pterosaur that lived during the Albian age of the Early Cretaceous, about 112 million years ago. Its remains were found in what is now the Romualdo Formation of the Santana Group in Brazil. Tupuxuara was named in 1988 by paleontologists Alexander Kellner and Diógenes de Almeida Campos. The name Tupuxuara means "familiar spirit" referring to a familiar spirit in the mythology of the Tupi people in Brazil. Two species have been named, T. longicristatus, the type species, and T. leonardii. An additional species has been named in 2009, T. deliradamus. However, the validity of this species has been put into question and it may not even belong to Tupuxuara.

Tupuxuara

olekinderhook · CC BY 3.0 · 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
ThalassodromidaePBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Pterosauria
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pterosauria

Time the record covers

At most 6.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 119.57 Mya and 113.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 5 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous120–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–117 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences117–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–116 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences116–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–115 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences115–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–114 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences114–113 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences113–113 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120.1 Mya112.7 Mya

5 occurrences of Tupuxuara 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

5 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

1 formation

Romualdo — 7.18°S, 39.73°WRomualdo — 7.22°S, 39.27°W

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The named rock units Tupuxuara has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Tupuxuara and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

51 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Tupuxuara, 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

5 references

Each of the 5 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. 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 content2

Picture of Tupuxuara

Credit
olekinderhook
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
PeePmono
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was 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

What may have been alongside itThalassodromidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kellner and Campos 1988