Drepanosaurs and Caelestiventus coloring page

 

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Today's new drawing is of a Drepanosaur.

Drepanosaur climbing Tree with Caelestiventus flying in the Background

Drapanosaurs were a type of reptile that lived in the Late Cretaceous Period in many parts of the Earth.  They were found in the Saints and Sinners Quarry in Eastern Utah. I have been to that amazing quarry on the side of a cliff near another cliff drop off.  Fossils of Depranosaurs have been found in New Mexico, Arizona, New Jersey, and as far away as England.  

These reptiles were only between 18 and 20 inches long.  That is between 45 and 50 cm. long.  

It appears that there were several species of Depranosaurs.  Many seemed to have had prehensile tails.  That means that they could grab onto branches and hang from their tail and use their tail like an extra arm or leg to climb.  These were arboreal animals so they lived in the trees.  This one, in the drawing, might just be after a bark beetle larva.  You will notice that they had a long claw on their hands.  This could have been used to dig into bark for grubs or bark beetle larvae, or even for bark beetles.  

Drepanosaurs most likely were prey for Pterosaurs.  At the Saints and Sinners Quarry the paleontologists from Brigham Young University found a Pterosaur with a wingspan of about 5 feet or 1.5 meters wide.  This was large for one of the early Pterosaurs.  Professor Brooks Britt was one of the leaders of this excavation.  The skull of the Pterosaur was very toothy.  It even had 3 sets of fangs on the top of the mouth and in the lower jaw had one set of fangs. These would have been great weapons for grabbing large lizard-like animals off of trees.  

This new to science Pterosaur was named Caelestiventus hanseni.  (The species name is for Robin Hansen, a BLM official who helped with the excavation in some way.)  This was the only the second Triassic Pterosaur to be discovered in North America.  The other being found in Greenland.  Studies indicate that it had excellent eyesight.  Since the location of the Saints and Sinners Quarry is in a desert now and was also a desert 210 million years ago, this was a Pterosaur that may have eaten some fish from oasis pools, but certainly ate terrestrial or land animals as well.  In fact, land animals, like Depranosaurs, were probably Caelestiventus' main diet.  Paleontologists consider Caelestiventus to be a close relative to Dimorphodon. 

IF you think about it... the Depranosaur in the drawing may be trying to hold still to hide from the Caelestiventus that is probably out hunting for Depranosaurs. 

NOTE:  This drawing, in printable form, is found by clicking on the button labeled: Paleontology. Then remember to scroll down to the bottom of the list for new drawings like this one.