Dino card No. 0535 of 2,027

Douzhanopterus

Say it: DOE-zhan-top-TER-us

Name means: “Victorious Fighting Buddha wing”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesMiddle Jurassic to Late JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Douzhanopterus was a small flying reptile that lived during the Jurassic Period. It had a tail that was shorter than older pterosaurs but longer than later ones, making it a link between the two groups.2 1

Fun fact: pterosaurs flew over the dinosaurs, but they were their cousins, not dinosaurs themselves.

Lived

168 to 152 million years ago4

Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic

Fossils found in

Liaoning, China3 2 1

Food

Fish3

Wingspan

0.74 m2 1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

How big was Douzhanopterus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Douzhanopterus had a tail that was 173% the length of its upper arm bone (humerus), which is shorter than older pterosaurs but still longer than later pterodactyloids.2

Its fifth toe on the foot was reduced, with the first toe bone only about 20% the length of the third foot bone.2

The only known fossil of Douzhanopterus is a skeleton without a skull, stored at the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature in China.1

Douzhanopterus lived about 160 to 161 million years ago, during the Oxfordian stage of the Jurassic Period.2

Its name comes from a Chinese legend: Douzhan refers to a Buddha title given to the Monkey King Sun Wukong.1

Douzhanopterus is considered a transitional form, meaning it shows features between older long-tailed pterosaurs and newer short-tailed pterodactyloids.2

The fossil was bought from a local farmer who said it came from Toudaoyingzi, but scientists think it actually came from Linglongta in Liaoning, China.1

AI-made picture of Douzhanopterus — An AI-made picture of how Douzhanopterus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Douzhanopterus
Named by: Wang et al. 20174
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Monofenestrata4
Classification: Pterosauria4
Age of the rocks: 168 to 152 million years (Bathonian / Kimmeridgian)4
Rock formations: Tiaojishan4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Douzhanopterus was named in 2017 by Wang Xiaoli and colleagues. The only known fossil was bought from a local farmer and is now stored at the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how Douzhanopterus is related to other pterosaurs, but it is thought to be a close relative of the group that led to pterodactyloids.2

Where the facts come from

Douzhanopterus (en.wikipedia.org)
New evidence from China for the nature of the pterosaur evolutionary transition | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Douzhanopterus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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