Beipiaopterus Beipiaopterus Beipiaopterus is a genus of ctenochasmatid pterosaur (flying reptile) from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation (Aptian) in the People's Republic of China. The genus was named in 2003 by Lü Junchang. The generic name is derived from Beipiao City in Liaoning Province and a Latinised Greek "pteron", "wing". The specific epithet honours paleontologist Professor Chen Peiji. The type and only species is based on holotype BPM 0002, a crushed partial skeleton of a subadult individual on a slab, missing the skull. It includes four cervical, fourteen dorsal, three sacral and nine caudal vertebrae, a complete left wing and two
South Polar region of the Cretaceous indicates a less powerful impact in the South Polar region. Given that the dinosaurs and other fauna of the polar regions of the Cretaceous were well adapted for living in long periods of dark and cold weather, it has been postulated that this community might have survived the event. The last temnospondyls–a group of giant amphibians which mainly died out after the Triassic–inhabited the South Polar region into the Early Cretaceous. "Koolasuchus", perhaps the last of the temnospondyls, is thought to have survived in regions where it was too cold for their competitors, the neosuchians–a group of reptiles containing modern