Farke Andrew A
Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools, Claremont, CA, USA.
PeerJ. 2021 Jan 20;9:e10766. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10766. eCollection 2021.
Pterosaurs were widespread during the Late Cretaceous, but their fossils are comparatively rare in terrestrial depositional environments. A large pterosaur bone from the Kaiparowits Formation (late Campanian, ~76-74 Ma) of southern Utah, USA, is tentatively identified as an ulna, although its phylogenetic placement cannot be precisely constrained beyond Pterosauria. The element measures over 36 cm in preserved maximum length, indicating a comparatively large individual with an estimated wingspan between 4.3 and 5.9 m, the largest pterosaur yet reported from the Kaiparowits Formation. This size estimate places the individual at approximately the same wingspan as the holotype for from the penecontemporaneous Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. Thus, relatively large pterosaurs occurred in terrestrial ecosystems in both the northern and southern parts of Laramidia (western North America) during the late Campanian.
翼龙在晚白垩世分布广泛，但它们的化石在陆地沉积环境中相对稀少。美国犹他州南部凯帕罗维茨组（晚坎帕阶，约7600 - 7400万年前）的一块大型翼龙骨骼初步鉴定为尺骨，尽管其系统发育位置在翼龙目之外无法精确确定。该骨骼保存的最大长度超过36厘米，表明这是一个相对较大的个体，估计翼展在4.3至5.9米之间，是凯帕罗维茨组迄今报道的最大翼龙。这一尺寸估计表明该个体的翼展与来自同期艾伯塔省恐龙公园组的 的正模标本大致相同。因此，在晚坎帕阶期间，北美西部拉腊米迪亚北部和南部的陆地生态系统中都出现了相对较大的翼龙。
