Dino card No. 0591 of 2,027

Eoazhdarcho

Say it: EE-oh-azh-DAR-ko

Name means: “dawn Azhdarcho”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Eoazhdarcho was a small flying reptile that lived in the Early Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago. It had a wingspan of about 1.6 metres (5.2 feet) and probably ate fish. Its fossils were found in Liaoning, China.1 3

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

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Chaoyang, Liaoning, China1 3

Food

Fish3

Wingspan

1.6 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

as long as 3 house cats nose to tail

How big was Eoazhdarcho compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Eoazhdarcho is known from a partial skeleton and lower jaw, found in the Jiufotang Formation of China.1

Its name means 'dawn Azhdarcho' because it was an early relative of the larger pterosaur Azhdarcho.1

Scientists think Eoazhdarcho belonged to a group called Chaoyangopteridae, which are close cousins of the giant azhdarchids.1

The ratio of its humerus (upper arm bone) to femur (thigh bone) is about 0.96, meaning its arms and legs were almost the same length.2

Eoazhdarcho lived around 120 million years ago, during the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous.1 3

AI-made picture of Eoazhdarcho — An AI-made picture of how Eoazhdarcho 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: Eoazhdarcho
Named by: Lü and Ji 20053
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Azhdarchidae3
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea > Azhdarchidae3
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)3
Rock formations: Jiufotang3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Eoazhdarcho was named in 2005 by Chinese paleontologists Lü Junchang and Ji Qiang, based on a partial skeleton found in Chaoyang, Liaoning, China.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Eoazhdarcho belongs to the Chaoyangopteridae family or to a different group within the pterosaurs, as different studies have placed it in different positions.1

Where the facts come from

Eoazhdarcho (en.wikipedia.org)
New Azhdarchid Pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Western Liaoning (semanticscholar.org)
Eoazhdarcho in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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