Tapejara

Tapejara (from a Tupi word meaning "the old being") is a genus of Brazilian pterosaur from the Cretaceous Period. The Tapejara genus showed wide diversity in size, some with a wingspan of 6 metres. Both species bore a differently sized/shaped crest that may have been used to signal and display for other Tapejara, much as toucans use their bright bills to signal to one another. Tapejara crests consisted of a semicircular crest over the snout, and in the case of the type species T. wellnhoferi, a bony prong which extended back behind the head.
The type species and first discovered, T. wellnhoferi, is the smallest species assigned to Tapejara and does not preserve evidence of soft-tissue crest extensions. A second species, originally named Tapejara imperator, is much larger and possessed a crest made up of distinctively long prongs, projecting from the rounded snout crest and the back of the skull, which supported a large, possibly rounded sail-like crest of keratin. A third species, Tapejara navigans, was mid-sized and sported a similar crest to T. imperator, though narrower and more dome-shaped, that lacked the backwards-pointing bony support prong.
Category:Dinosaurs