Nemicolopterus crypticus

Aw, what a tweet liddle tweedy bird! I want to snuglylumphs it all up!

The superb little pterosaur Nemicolopterus crypticus, in the trees, like all the restorations out there (hey, at least I went for something other than a ginko!). Based on my skeletal.

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Science is Boring

You know, with the whole annoying "science is fun kids!" bullshite going on, it's nice to see this: science is a boring (and possibly a waste of your life):


Expert On Anteaters Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters

Nemicolopterus crypticus Skeletal

A preliminary skeletal of the new (and absolutely tiny) pterosaur Nemicolopterus crypticus. This was done from the not-very-high-resolution photographs and drawings in the description, so I do stress that it is preliminary.

White indicates bones present and restorable, light grey indicates bones that are present but I had to pretty my make up (because they are badly crushed, partially obscured by other bones, etc.) and dark grey missing elements. Stipples indicate air sacs. Gotta say, this is one cool looking little beasty. Really birdlike.

References:
Wang et al., 2008. Discovery of a rare arboreal forest-dwelling flying reptile (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea) from China. PNAS vol. 105 (6) pp. 1983-1987

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Tropeognathus mesembrinus

Nemo Ramjet commented that a lot of my pterosaur pictures look like those classic paintings of WW2 fighters. So I decided to go the whole hog! Anyway, the pterosaur is Tropeognathus mesembrinus, with the body modeled on Anhanguera. I've gone with my more customary "Cunningham" membrane configuration, which looks pretty sweet on these guys.

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