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Pterosaur. Representative evidence-type visual; not the exact specimen.
OBJECT DOSSIER · SMITHSONIAN OPEN ACCESS

Pterosaur — Austriadactylus cristatus

SAGE Museum Deep Time scientific dossier
Date / Period
Late Triassic — Norian · Approximately 216 to 212 million years ago.
Object Type
cast
Medium
representative_scientific_visual
About This Object

Geologic period: Late Triassic — Norian

Age: Approximately 216 to 212 million years ago.

Feeding: Exact diet is not assigned from the display cast alone.

Locomotion: Powered flight.

Body plan: Flying reptile with elongated wing fingers supporting membranous wings and a distinctive cranial crest.

Evidence: Wing architecture and pterosaur skeletal anatomy provide direct evidence of flight adaptation.

Why it matters: Austriadactylus shows that true powered flight had already evolved in pterosaurs during the Triassic.

Plain Language Identity: An early Late Triassic pterosaur from Austria.

What You Are Looking At: A cast based on fossil material of the crested pterosaur Austriadactylus cristatus.

Ecosystem: Late Triassic environment of what is now the Alpine region.

Preservation: Visitor object is a cast.

Find Location: Tyrol, Austria.

Open Questions: Pterosaurs are close archosaur relatives of dinosaurs but are not dinosaurs themselves.

Source Urls: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour/current-exhibits/deep-time-virtual-tour-fossil-list; https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=Austriadactylus%20cristatus

Enrichment Method: SAGE curated research pass; title and scientific name matched; chronology and lineage distinctions retained; evidence separated from inference

Scientific name: Austriadactylus cristatus

Evidence / representation: Representative evidence-type visual; not the exact specimen.

Why It Is In This SAGE Exhibit

Representative evidence-type visual; not the exact specimen.

Rise of the Dinosaurs: A New World After Catastrophe.

Provenance
Smithsonian Deep Time source scene: Reptiles Move Back to the Ocean in the Jurassic
Exhibition History
Included in the SAGE Museum Dinosaurs & Deep Time staging exhibit.
Subjects & Themes
Austriadactylus cristatus Late Triassic — Norian cast Reptiles Move Back to the Ocean in the Jurassic Rise of the Dinosaurs
ORIGINAL COLLECTION SOURCE

This object page stays inside SAGE Museum. The Smithsonian link below is provided only as the original scholarly collection record. It opens separately.