Unranked clade
Valid Extinct

Nyctosauridae

(Hay 1902)

Nyctosauridae is a family of specialized soaring pterosaurs of the late Cretaceous Period of North America, Africa, and possibly other continents including South America. It was named in 1889 by Henry Alleyne Nicholson and Richard Lydekker.

Temporal range
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Paleogene
Neogene
252 201 145 66 0 Ma
PBDB occurrences
3
Group
Ptérosaures
Piscivore Volant Marine
Nyctosauridae
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Fossil specimen, CM 11422, of Nyctosaurus gracilis © User:Piotrus · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia
PBDB ↗ Wikipedia ↗
Classification
Pterosauria Order
›
Pterodactyloidea Suborder
›
Pteranodontia Unranked clade
›
Aponyctosauria Unranked clade
›
Nyctosauridae Unranked clade
Fossil sites 3 geolocated sites
Distribution
Top countries
🇲🇽 Mexico
2
🇲🇦 Morocco
1
Geological formations
Couche III
1
Temporal distribution
Maastrichtian (72.2–66 Ma)
1
Turonian (93.9–89.8 Ma)
2
Bibliography
Original description
O. P. Hay. 1902. Bibliography and Catalogue of the Fossil Vertebrata of North America. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey 179:1-868 DOI ↗
Bibliography (3)
N. R. Longrich, D. M. Martill, and B. Andres. 2018. Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. PLoS Biology 16(3):e2001663:1-38 DOI ↗
E. Frey, R. A. Elgin, and W. Stinnesbeck, J. M. Padilla-Gutierrez, C. Ifrim, S. Giersch, A. H. Gonzalez-Gonzalez. 2012. A new specimen of nyctosaurid pterosaur, cf. Muzquizopteryx sp. from the Late Cretaceous of northeast Mexico. Revista Mexican de Ciencais Geologicas 29:131-139
E. Frey, M.-C. Buchy, and W. Stinnesbeck, A. González González, A. di Stefano. 2006. Muzquizopteryx coahuilensis n. g., n. sp., a nyctosaurid pterosaur with soft tissue preservation from the Coniacian (Late Cretaceous) of northeast Mexico (Coahuila). Oryctos 6:19-39