Laopteryx
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| Laopteryx Fossil range: Late Jurassic |
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Laopteryx ("First stone wing") is the name assigned to a pterosaur (flying reptile) or a bird from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming, USA. A partial skull was discovered at Como Bluff by Othniel Marsh in 1881, who identified it as a bird. There is also a single tooth, which may belong to the skull. It is not impossible that an Archaeopteryx - type bird lived in North America: Palaeopteryx, also from the Upper Jurassic of USA, has been identified as a dinosaur but may have been an archaeopterygid. However, judging from the known fossil record, birds appear to have arisen in Eurasian rather than American Laurasia. Laopteryx was reclassified in 1986 by John Ostrom as a pterosaur of indeterminate classification[citation needed]. Nevertheless the name is regarded as a nomen dubium, because the fragmentary remains are not sufficiently diagnostic.
[edit] References
The Pterosaur Database [1]
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