Description

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Haopterus was a genus of ornithocheirid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China. The genus was in 2001 named by Wang Xiaolin and Lü Junchang. The type species is Haopterus gracilis. The genus name honours Professor Hao Yichun and combines his name with a Latinised Greek pteron, « wing ». The specific name, « slender-built » in Latin, refers to the condition of the metatarsals. The genus is based on holotype IVPP V11726, a crushed fossil found in 1998 at the Sihetun-locality. The layer it was discovered in, was argon-dated at an age of 124,6 million years. It was the first Chinese pterosaur fossil preserving the skull. It consists of the front half of a subadult, including a skull, lower jaws, pectoral girdle, sternum, arms, cervical and dorsal vertebrae, partial ischium and metatarsals.