Laopteryx

Taxobox
name = "Laopteryx"
fossil_range = Late Jurassic
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
ordo = Pterosauria
subordo = unknown
familia = unknown
genus = "Laopteryx"
genus_authority = Marsh, 1881
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
* "L. priscum"Verify source|date=August 2007 (type) Marsh, 1881

"Laopteryx" ("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 (though highly unlikely) 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; all that can be told from the single known specimen is that it was probably a dromaeosaur. And judging from the known fossil record of Mesozoic birds, these appear to have arisen in Eurasian rather than American Laurasia.

"Laopteryx" was reclassified in 1986 by John Ostrom as a pterosaur of indeterminate classificationFact|date=February 2007. Nevertheless the name is regarded as a "nomen dubium", because the fragmentary remains are not sufficiently diagnostic.

References

The Pterosaur Database [http://www.pterosaur.co.uk]