Laopteryx Laopteryx Laopteryx is the name assigned to a pterosaur (flying reptile) from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming, United States; it was originally thought to be a bird. The genus was named in 1881 by Othniel Charles Marsh. The generic name is derived from Greek "laas", "stone", and "pteryx", "wing". The full species name given by Marsh was "Laopteryx priscum"; the specific name meaning "of venerable age" in Latin. However, Marsh incorrectly used the neuter form, while "pteryx" is feminine in Greek. (See grammatical gender.) This was in the 19th century emended to an, also incorrect, masculine "priscus" and
History of paleontology he summarized the evidence for there having been an extended time during which the earth had teemed with large reptiles, and he divided that era, based in what rock strata different types of reptiles first appeared, into three intervals that anticipated the modern periods of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. In 1832 Mantell would find, in Tilgate, a partial skeleton of an armored reptile he would call "Hylaeosaurus". In 1841 the English anatomist Richard Owen would create a new order of reptiles, which he called Dinosauria, for "Megalosaurus", "Iguanodon", and "Hylaeosaurus". This evidence that giant reptiles had lived on Earth