Cathayopterus grabaui

Cathayopterus is an extinct genus of ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous-age Yixian Formation of Liaoning, China. The name means "China wing", using the word "Cathay" as an old alternative name for China. The type species is C. grabaui, described in 2006 by Wang Xiaolin and Zhou Zhonghe. The species name honors the late American geologist Amadeus W. Grabau, a pioneer in the study of the Jehol Biota. It is a member of the Ctenochasmatidae, a clade of mostly filter feeding pterosaurs from the Jurassic and early Cretaceous.

No picture of Cathayopterus grabaui was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Cathayopterus grabaui, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CathayopterusPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Cathayopterus
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pterosauria

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 125.77 Mya and 119.57 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Cretaceous126–126 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences124–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences123–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–122 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences122–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–120 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences120–120 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences120–120 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences120–120 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126.3 Mya119.1 Mya

1 occurrence of Cathayopterus grabaui on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

1 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Yixian — 41.24°N, 119.40°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Cathayopterus grabaui has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Cathayopterus grabaui and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Cathayopterus grabaui and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

1 taxon

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Cathayopterus grabaui, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Cathayopterus grabaui was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Cathayopterus grabaui, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.

No 3D scan of Cathayopterus grabaui was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCathayopterus through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wang and Zhou 2006