Tupuxuara Illustration

By |2023-08-07T10:33:08+01:00July 16th, 2017|Dinosaur Fans, Educational Activities, Everything Dinosaur Products, Main Page, Teaching|0 Comments

Flying Reptile Fan Asks for a Tupuxuara Scale Drawing

In our bulging email inbox this week, we received a request from an avid fan of prehistoric animals for some more information about the large Early Cretaceous pterosaur called Tupuxuara.  We don’t get too many requests related to this, one of the more bizarre members of the Pterosauria, but as ever, our hard-working team members were happy to oblige.  A scale drawing accompanied by a fact sheet on this flying reptile, fossils of which are known from north-eastern Brazil, was promptly sent out.  We were happy to send out the information and a Tupuxuara scale drawing.

A Scale Drawing of the Bizarre Crested Tupuxuara (T. leonardii)

A scale drawing of Tupuxuara

Tupuxuara scale drawing.  Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

How to Pronounce Tupuxuara

This flying reptile was named after a spirit figure in the folklore of the people who live in the area of Brazil where the fossils come from.  Our emailer wanted clarification on how to pronounce the name of this prehistoric animal.  As far as we are aware, this pterosaur is pronounced “Too-pooh-hwar-ah”.  There are several species assigned to this genus, the second species to be named T. leonardii honours Father Giuseppe Leonardi, who did much to improve our understanding of the fossils associated with the Araripe Basin of Brazil.

Tupuxuara is popular amongst model collectors and we have received some super pictures of the Papo Tupuxuara model being used in various prehistoric animal dioramas.

Tupuxuara in a Prehistoric Scene

Tupuxuara diorama.

Tupuxuara confronts a Carnotaurus.

Picture credit: Rodriguez

This member of the Thalassodromidae family of pterosaurs, was quite a sizeable beast.  Some of the largest specimens had wingspans in excess of four metres. As to what this flying reptile ate, this is open to speculation but palaeontologists have suggested various diets including fruit eating (frugivore) or even scavenging the kills of dinosaurs.  The picture above shows a Tupuxuara challenging a large Theropod (Carnotaurus) over the carcass of a Titanosaur.  This is a fascinating model composition and it demonstrates how popular Tupuxuara is with dinosaur fans and model collectors.

Papo have produced a Tupuxuara replica, to see this model as well as the complete range of Papo prehistoric animal figures available from Everything Dinosaur: Papo Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animal Models

At Everything Dinosaur, we try our best to help all those people who contact us.  We try to answer all the questions and queries that we receive quickly and in full.  We respond to all those emails, letters and phone calls that require a reply.

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