Dino card No. 1914 of 2,027

Wenupteryx

Say it: wen-oo-TER-ix

Name means: “sky wing”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate Jurassic to Early CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Wenupteryx was a small flying reptile that soared over a shallow sea in what is now Argentina. It had long wings and a fast, swooping flight. It caught fish with its beak.1

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

Lived

149 to 143 million years ago3

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

El Ministerio Quarry, Los Catutos, Neuquén Province, Argentina3 1

Food

Fish3 1

Wingspan

1.1 m1

estimated from a subadult skeleton

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 2 house cats nose to tail

How big was Wenupteryx compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Wenupteryx is the most complete Jurassic pterosaur ever found in the Southern Hemisphere.1

Its name comes from the Mapuche language: 'wenu' means sky and 'pteryx' is Greek for wing.1

The species name 'uzi' means fast in the Mapuche language.1

Wenupteryx lived about 150 to 146 million years ago during the Late Jurassic.2

Its fossils were found in marine rocks, showing it lived near a shallow sea.1

The only known skeleton is from a subadult, meaning it was not fully grown when it died.1

AI-made picture of Wenupteryx — An AI-made picture of how Wenupteryx 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: Wenupteryx
Named by: Codorniú and Gasparini 20133
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Pterodactyloidea3
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea3
Age of the rocks: 149 to 143 million years (Tithonian)3
Rock formations: Vaca Muerta3
Countries: Argentina3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Wenupteryx was named by Laura Codorniú and Zulma Gasparini in 2013. The first skeleton was found in the 1980s at Los Catutos in Argentina, but it was not fully described until later.3 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Wenupteryx is more closely related to the Euctenochasmatia or the Archaeopterodactyloidea group of pterosaurs.1

Where the facts come from

The Late Jurassic pterosaurs from northern Patagonia, (ri.conicet.gov.ar)
Wenupteryx (en.wikipedia.org)
Wenupteryx 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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