Dino card No. 1224 of 2,027

Muzquizopteryx

Say it: muz-KEE-zop-TER-iks

Name means: “wing from Muzquiz”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Muzquizopteryx was a small flying reptile that lived in the Late Cretaceous period. It had a wingspan of about 2 meters (6.6 feet) and a short, rounded crest on the back of its head. It flew over the sea and caught fish with its toothless jaws.1

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

Lived

94 to 86 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Coahuila, Mexico1 2

Food

Fish4

Wingspan

2 m1

Weight

3 kg3

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 25 bananas

as long as 4 house cats nose to tailabout as heavy as a house catas heavy as 25 bananas

How big was Muzquizopteryx compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Muzquizopteryx is the oldest known nyctosaurid pterosaur and the smallest adult Late Cretaceous pterosaur discovered until 2006.1

Its arms were very strong, with a large hatchet-shaped crest on the upper arm bone for powerful wing muscles.1

The first fossil was found by a quarry worker in the 1990s and was bricked into an office wall as decoration before scientists recognized its value in 2002.1

The holotype skeleton is nearly complete and includes soft tissue remains, such as long fossilized tendons along both lower arms.1

A second specimen, a partial wing from a subadult, was found in slightly older rocks from the late Turonian and is about 81% the size of the first specimen.1

Muzquizopteryx had a long pteroid bone pointing toward its neck, which helped support a flight membrane.1

AI-made picture of Muzquizopteryx — An AI-made picture of how Muzquizopteryx 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 Muzquizopteryx

?How big was Muzquizopteryx?

Muzquizopteryx was small for a pterosaur, with a wingspan of about 2 meters (6.6 feet).1

?When did Muzquizopteryx live?

Muzquizopteryx lived during the Late Cretaceous period, specifically the early Coniacian stage, about 89 million years ago.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Muzquizopteryx
Named by: Frey et al. 20064
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Nyctosauridae4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 94 to 86 million years (Turonian / Coniacian)4
Countries: Mexico4
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: In the 1990s, quarry worker José Martínez Vásquez found a skeleton in El Rosario, Mexico. It was bricked into an office wall until 2002, when scientists recognized its importance. In 2006, Eberhard Frey and colleagues named it Muzquizopteryx coahuilensis.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Muzquizopteryx belongs to the Nyctosauridae or the Pteranodontidae, because some classifications include Nyctosaurus within Pteranodontidae.1

Where the facts come from

Muzquizopteryx (en.wikipedia.org)
%%Muzquizopteryx coahuilensis%% Frey, Buchy, Stinnesbeck, González-González y Di Stefano (datosabiertos.unam.mx)
Muzquizopteryx coahuilensis - Beschreibung, Dinodata.de (dinodata.de)
Muzquizopteryx 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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