''Laopteryx'' is the name assigned to a

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to ...

(flying reptile) from the

Upper Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987. In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...

Morrison Formation The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic, Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandsto ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

, United States; it was originally thought to be a bird. The genus was named in 1881 by

Othniel Charles Marsh Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...

. The generic name is derived from Greek ''laas'', "stone", and ''pteryx'', "wing". The full species name given by Marsh was ''Laopteryx priscum''; the

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

meaning "of venerable age" in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. However, Marsh incorrectly used the neuter form, while ''pteryx'' is feminine in Greek. (See

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...

.) This was in the 19th century emended to an, also incorrect, masculine ''priscus'' and in 1971 by Pierce Brodkorb to ''prisca''. A partial skull,

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

YPM 1800, was discovered in ''Quarry 9'' at Como Bluff. It consists of a piece from the hind portion of the cranium. There is also a single tooth, found near the skull and referred to the type. Marsh identified it as a bird, about the size of a heron, of the family Archaeopterygidae within the

Odontornithes Odontornithes is an obsolete and disused taxonomic term proposed by Othniel Charles Marsh for birds possessing teeth, notably the genera ''Hesperornis'' and ''Ichthyornis'' from the Cretaceous deposits of Kansas. In 1875 Marsh divided this "subcl ...

. As such it would have been one of the oldest known and the only one of that age then discovered in America. Only a century later would another possible ''

Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...

'' - type bird be described from North America: '' Palaeopteryx'', also from the

of the US. This has been identified as a dinosaur but may more precisely have been an archaeopterygid; however, all that can be told from the single known specimen is that it was probably a more general eumaniraptoran. The fossil record of

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

birds mainly consists of Eurasian rather than American

Laurasia Laurasia () was the more northern of two large landmasses that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from around ( Mya), the other being Gondwana. It separated from Gondwana (beginning in the late Triassic period) during the breakup of Pan ...

n forms. During most of the 20th century the identification by Marsh was generally doubted but the limited remains generated little interest. In 1986 however, the fossil was restudied by John Ostrom who concluded that ''Laopteryx'' was a pterosaur. There were some indications it belonged to the Pterodactyloidea but Ostrom, in view of the lack of information, limited his determination to a more general Pterosauria '' incertae sedis''. Of the tooth he thought it likely belonged to some

crocodylomorph Crocodylomorpha is a group of pseudosuchian archosaurs that includes the crocodilians and their extinct relatives. They were the only members of Pseudosuchia to survive the end-Triassic extinction. During Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times, cro ...

.Ostrom, J. H. (1986). "The Jurassic ‘bird’ ''Laopteryx priscus'' re-examined". ''Contrib. geol.'' Spec. Pap. 3, 11–19 The name is also regarded as a ''

nomen dubium In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium'' it may be impossible to determine whether a s ...

'', because the fragmentary remains are not sufficiently diagnostic to refer future other fossils to it.

References

External links

The Pterosaur Database (pdf)
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1012782 Pterosaurs Late Jurassic pterosaurs of North America Morrison fauna Taxa named by Othniel Charles Marsh Fossil taxa described in 1881

See also

References

External links