Feilongus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 124.6 Ma |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Order: | †Pterosauria |
Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
Family: | †Ctenochasmatidae |
Subfamily: | †Gnathosaurinae |
Genus: |
†Feilongus Wang et al., 2005 |
Species: | †F. youngi |
Binomial name | |
Feilongus youngi Wang et al., 2005 |
Feilongus is an extinct genus of ctenochasmatoid or ornithocheiroid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Beipiao, Liaoning, China.
The genus was named in 2005 by Wang Xiaolin e.a.. The type species is Feilongus youngi. The genus name is derived from Feilong, the "flying dragon". The specific name honours the late Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhongjian or "Chung Chien Young".
Feilongus is based on holotype IVPP V-12539, a skull and articulated mandible, with on the same plate the detached posterior braincase, of a subadult individual. The fossil is strongly crushed. It is notable for having two bony crests on the skull (one long and low on middle of the snout, and one projecting backwards from the rear of the skull), and for the upper jaws being 10% or 27 millimetres longer than the lower jaws, giving it a pronounced overbite. The preserved part of the second crest was short with the leading edge rounded, and may have had a nonbony extension, now lost. The skull of the only known individual is 390-400 millimeters long (15.4-15.7 inches) and extremely elongated with a slightly concave top. Its wingspan was estimated by Wang to have been around 2.4 meters (7.9 feet), making it large for a basal pterodactyloid. The skull and lower jaws held 76 long, curved needle-like teeth, eighteen in the upper, nineteen in the lower jaw, confined to the beak ends, the anterior third, of the jaws.