Dino card No. 1412 of 2,027

Pessopteryx

Say it: PESS-op-ter-iks

Name means: “The name means 'wing' or 'fin' and 'pteryx' means 'wing' in Greek, but for this marine reptile it likely refers to its flippers.”1

Ate: MeatIchthyosaursEarly Triassic to Middle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Pessopteryx was a fast-swimming marine reptile that lived in the ocean during the Early Triassic, about 248 million years ago. It was not a dinosaur, but a type of ichthyosaur, with a fish-like body and flippers for steering.1 2

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

249 to 241 million years ago2

Early Triassic to Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Fossils of Pessopteryx have been found on Svalbard, which is a group of islands belonging to Norway.1 2

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Pessopteryx lived during the Olenekian age of the Early Triassic, about 248 to 241 million years ago.1 2

It was named by Carl Wiman in 1910, who originally thought there were four different species, but today only one is considered valid.1

Some of the original species names, like P. arctica and P. pinguis, are now considered doubtful, and scientists are not sure if they were really different.1

Pessopteryx is part of the family Merriamosauridae, which includes other ichthyosaurs that lived in the Triassic seas.1 2

The fossils were found in the Vikinghøgda formation, which is a layer of rock from the Early Triassic.2

Pessopteryx is known from only two fossil collections, both from Svalbard, making it a rare find.2

AI-made picture of Pessopteryx — An AI-made picture of how Pessopteryx 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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Myth buster

Myth: Some people might think Pessopteryx was a dinosaur because it lived long ago and had a scary name.

Truth: Pessopteryx was actually an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile that lived in the ocean, not a dinosaur. Dinosaurs lived on land.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Pessopteryx
Named by: Wiman 19102
Group: Ichthyosaurs
Family / clade: Merriamosauridae2
Classification: Ichthyosauria > Ichthyosauromorpha2
Age of the rocks: 249 to 241 million years ()2
Rock formations: Vikinghøgda2
Countries: Svalbard2
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Pessopteryx was first named by Carl Wiman in 1910 based on fossils from Svalbard, Norway. He described several species, but later scientists reclassified them.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating how many species of Pessopteryx really existed, because some of the original fossils are incomplete and hard to compare.1

Where the facts come from

Pessopteryx (en.wikipedia.org)
Pessopteryx 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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