Genus
Valid Extinct

Thalassodromeus

Kellner and Campos 2002

Thalassodromeus is a genus of pterosaur that lived in what is now Brazil during the Early Cretaceous period, about a hundred million years ago. The original skull, discovered in 1983 in the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil, was collected in several pieces. In 2002, the skull was made the holotype specimen of Thalassodromeus sethi by palaeontologists Alexander Kellner and Diogenes de Almeida Campos. The generic name means "sea runner", and the specific name refers to the Egyptian god Seth due to its crest being supposedly reminiscent of Seth's crown. Other scholars have pointed out that the crest was instead similar to the crown of Amon. A jaw tip was assigned to T. sethi in 2005, became the basis of the new genus Banguela in 2015, and assigned back to Thalassodromeus as the species T. oberlii in 2018, though other researchers consider it a valid genus. Another species was described in 2015 based on a supposed crest fragment, but this was later shown to be part of a turtle shell.

Temporal range
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Paleogene
Neogene
252 201 145 66 0 Ma
PBDB occurrences
1
Group
Ptérosaures
Piscivore Volant Marine
Thalassodromeus
click to enlarge
Reconstructed Thalassodromeus sethi skeleton (the postcranium is hypothetical) with Anhanguera behind, National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo. © Kabacchi · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia
PBDB Wikipedia
Classification
Pterosauria Order
Pterodactyloidea Suborder
Azhdarchoidea Superfamily
Neoazhdarchia Unranked clade
Tapejaroidea Superfamily
Thalassodromidae Family
Thalassodromeus Genus
Fossil sites 1 geolocated sites
Distribution
Top countries
🇧🇷 Brazil
1
Geological formations
Temporal distribution
Aptian (121.4–113.2 Ma)
1
Species (1)
Thalassodromeus sethi 120 Ma
Images 2
Bibliography
Original description
A. W. A. Kellner and D. A. Campos. 2002. The function of the cranial crest and jaws of a unique pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Brazil. Science 297:389-392 DOI ↗
Bibliography (1)
A. W. A. Kellner and D. A. Campos. 2002. The function of the cranial crest and jaws of a unique pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Brazil. Science 297:389-392 DOI ↗