Dino card No. 0959 of 2,027

Keresdrakon

Say it: keh-RES-drah-kon

Name means: “ghost dragon”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesEarly Cretaceous to Late CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Keresdrakon was a toothless flying reptile that soared over a hot desert in what is now Brazil. It lived alongside another pterosaur called Caiuajara and a small dinosaur named Vespersaurus.1

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

Lived

121 to 72 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Cemitério dos Pterossauros Quarry, Cruzeiro do Oeste, Paraná State, Brazil4 1

Food

Fish4 1

Wingspan

2.5 to 3 m1 2

estimate; holotype is a subadult

Weight

15 kg to 20 kg2

estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 5 house cats

wings as wide as 1.5 bicycles in a rowas heavy as 4 watermelons

How big was Keresdrakon compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Keresdrakon had a unique blunt ridge on the top of its lower jaw that no other pterosaur has.1

All the Keresdrakon fossils found so far are from late juveniles or sub-adults, not fully grown adults.1

It lived in a Cretaceous desert with interdunal wetlands, where water and food were scarce.1

Keresdrakon is one of the first pterosaurs found living together with another pterosaur species, showing they shared the same habitat.1

Its long, flat beak was good for picking up small or dead animals, similar to how a marabou stork feeds today.1

The name Keresdrakon means 'ghost dragon' in Greek, inspired by its mysterious desert home.1

AI-made picture of Keresdrakon — An AI-made picture of how Keresdrakon 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.

you asked

Most asked questions about Keresdrakon

?What did Keresdrakon eat?

It was probably an opportunistic predator or scavenger, eating small animals, eggs, or carcasses, similar to a marabou stork today.1

?When did Keresdrakon live?

It lived during the Early Cretaceous, about 125 to 100.5 million years ago, though the exact age of its rock formation is debated.3

?Was Keresdrakon a dinosaur?

No, it was a pterosaur, a flying reptile that is not a dinosaur.3

?Did Keresdrakon live with other pterosaurs?

Yes, it lived alongside another pterosaur called Caiuajara, and this is the first direct evidence of two pterosaur species living together.3 1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Keresdrakon
Named by: Kellner et al. 20194
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Tapejaromorpha4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 72 million years (Aptian / Campanian)4
Rock formations: Goio-Erê4
Countries: Brazil4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Keresdrakon was named in 2019 by Alexander Kellner and his team based on a partial skeleton found at the Cemitério dos Pterossauros site in Brazil.4 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure how old the rocks containing Keresdrakon are. They could be from the Early Cretaceous (about 121 million years ago) or the Late Cretaceous (about 72 million years ago).1

Where the facts come from

Brasil - A new toothless pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea) from ... (scielo.br)
Mais um pterossauro é descoberto em Cruzeiro do Oeste - ABC - Academia Brasileira de Ciências (abc.org.br)
Keresdrakon (en.wikipedia.org)
Keresdrakon 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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