Piksi

Piksi
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 75 Ma
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Pterosauria
Suborder: Pterodactyloidea
Genus: Piksi
Varricchio, 2002
Species:
P. barbarulna
Binomial name
Piksi barbarulna
Varricchio, 2002

Piksi is a potential pterosaur[1] genus containing the single species Piksi barbarulna (meaning "strange elbowed big bird", from Blackfoot piksi, "big bird" or, specifically, "chicken" and Latin barbarus "strange, outlandish" + ulna, elbow[2]). It lived roughly 75 million years ago in what is now Montana, United States. Known from parts of a right wing – the humerus, ulna and radius bones – the only specimens found so far are housed in the Museum of the Rockies (collection number MOR 1113). The genus Piksi is monotypic at present.

The fossils were found in 1991 by Gloria Jean Siebrecht in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, namely at Bob's Vacation Site locality TM-088, Glacier County. Recovered from an old stratum of the upper Two Medicine Formation, they are probably from an individual that died in or near a small pool. It was described in 2002 by David J. Varricchio.

  1. ^ Longrich, N.R., Martill, D.M., and Andres, B. (2018). Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. PLoS Biology, 16(3): e2001663. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2001663
  2. ^ (Varricchio 2002)