Caelestiventus
| Caelestiventus Temporal range: Late Triassic, | |
|---|---|
| 3D printed skull reconstruction; the dip in the forehead is perhaps too pronounced | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Clade: | †Macronychoptera |
| Family: | †Dimorphodontidae |
| Genus: | †Caelestiventus Britt et al., 2018 |
| Type species | |
| †Caelestiventus hanseni Britt et al., 2018 | |
Caelestiventus (/səˌlɛstɪˈvɛntəs/ sə-LES-tih-VEN-təs, meaning "heavenly wind") is a pterosaur genus from the Late Triassic (Norian or Rhaetian) found in western North America. The type species, Caelestiventus hanseni, honors Robin Hansen, the Bureau of Land Management geologist (BLM), who facilitated access to the excavation site.
Caelestiventus is important because it is the sole example of a desert-dwelling non-pterodactyloid pterosaur and is 65 million years older than other known desert-dwelling pterosaurs. Additionally, it shows that even the earliest pterosaurs were morphologically and ecologically diverse and that the Dimorphodontidae originated in the Triassic period.
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