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 into the region suggests that average winter temperatures were greater than , with an average annual temperature of more than . However, polar neosuchians are only known from an almost complete skeleton of "Isisfordia", and other neosuchian remains are of undetermined species. Plesiosaurs inhabited freshwater river and estuary systems, given the locations of their remains, probably colonizing Australia in the Early to Middle Jurassic. Their remains, mainly teeth, have been documented from southeastern Australia deriving from the Late Cretaceous, though they were never described as the remains are too sparse to do so. The teeth share some affinity with pliosaurs,