Dsungaripterus (meaning: Wing of Junggar Basin) was a pterosaur by means of a wingspan of 3 metres (10 feet). It lived during the premature Cretaceous, ranging from China, where the first fossils were found in the Junngar Basin, to Africa, where more ruins have been found. It was not a dinosaur, but a category of extinct, flying reptile. Dsungaripterus fossils have been established in China where it was named by Young in 1964.

They were unconscientiously built with wide leathery wings, hollow bones, long, curved necks, long skulls and little bodies. They had large brains and very excellent eyesight. It had a low, bony crest that ran down from the bottom of the skull to halfway to the beak. Including it's neck, Dsungaripterus's head and neck was approximately a metre long. Its most notable characteristic was its long, narrow, up curved jaws with a pointed tip, making the animal look approximating a pair of flying tweezers. It had no teeth in the front part of its jaws, which were most likely used to remove shellfish and worms from cracks in rocks and the sandy, muddy beaches it populated. It had flat teeth at the back of the jaws, most likely for crushing the shells of its prey.

Dsungaripterus wings were roofed by a leathery membrane. This thin but hard membrane stretched between its body, the top of its legs and its elongated fourth fingers, forming the formation of the wing. Claws protruded from the additional fingers.

Dsungaripterus was a carnivore and almost certainly ate fish (which it caught at the float up of the oceans), mollusks, crabs, plankton (for some species), insects and scavenged departed animals on land.

Dsungaripterus was a pterodactyloid. By definition, all dinosaurs were diapsid reptiles with an upright posture. Pterosaurs almost certainly had a semi-upright stance. There is a little minority of paleontologists who think that the pterosaurs' stance could have been upright and that pterosaurs should therefore be incorporated in the clade of dinosaurs (being derived theropods). Either way, dinosaurs and pterosaurs are surely closely related.

The birds evolved during the Jurassic period and were probably rivalry for the pterodactyloids, including Dsungaripterus.

Scientific Classification:

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Sauropsida

Order: Pterosauria

Suborder: Pterodactyloidea

Family: Dsungaripteridae

Genus: Dsungaripterus