Caelestiventus
Caelestiventus ( , meaning "heavenly wind") is a pterosaur genus from the Late Triassic (latest Norian or Rhaetian) found in western North America. The type species, Caelestiventus hanseni, honors Robin Hansen, the Bureau of Land Management geologist (BLM), who facilitated access to the excavation site.
Article
6 sectionsContents
- Discovery
- Description
- Skull
- Classification
- Paleoecology
- References
Caelestiventus ( , meaning "heavenly wind") is a pterosaur genus from the Late Triassic (latest Norian or Rhaetian) found in western North America. The type species, Caelestiventus hanseni, honors Robin Hansen, the Bureau of Land Management geologist (BLM), who facilitated access to the excavation site.
Caelestiventus is important because it is the sole example of a desert-dwelling non-pterodactyloid pterosaur and is 65 million years older than other known desert-dwelling pterosaurs. Additionally, it shows that even the earliest pterosaurs were morphologically and ecologically diverse and that the Dimorphodontidae originated in the Triassic period. Along with Eotephradactylus, the genus represents one of the oldest known North American pterosaurs.