Sunday, September 11, 2011

Coelurosauravus.

Coelurosauravus (see-low-row-SORE-uh-vus (or) see-lore-oh-SORE-ay-vus) was a genus of late Permian reptile with "wings" that were either for gliding or display. It was very similar to the Triassic kuehneosaurids, but unlike the kuehneosaurids, it had a crest, like the crest of the dinosaur Protoceratops.


Coelurosauravus's wings resembled those of a moth, but they were made of stretched out bones covered with skin.


Coelurosauravus had sharp claws used for climbing tree bark. It was about 16 inches long.

Coelurosauravus probably ate flying insects like palaeodictyopterans. It was the first reptile to "fly." It could only glide, because it didn't have muscles in its wings which would allow it to actually flap them.



References:

http://www.reptileevolution.com/coelurosauravus.htm

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/predinosaurreptiles/p/Coelurosauravus.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Dinosaurs-CHRIS-MCNAB/dp/184566082X

http://www.surfacevision.com/coelurosauravus-image.html

4 comments:

  1. If this creature used these 'wings' to facilitate hopping from tree to tree (my conjecture), some idea of what the contemporaneous tree species were like might be interesting to explore. I say this by way of thinking aloud that the blog is called "life before the Dinosaurs," not "Animal life before the Dinosaurs." Something to think about, not a criticism by any stretch; quite to the contrary, in fact.

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  2. I mostly write about animals, but I've also written about organisms in other kingdoms. I've written about the fungus Prototaxites, the protist group Fusulinida, and the plants Sigillaria and Archaeopteris. I mostly write about time periods like the Cambrian and Ordovician when plants were mostly microscopic algae and small seaweed. There's a lot of different types of Cambrian algae that I might want to post sometime soon. Maybe I'll write about some more Paleozoic plants.

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