Tupuxuara is a genus of large, crested, and toothless pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous period of what is now the Romualdo Formation of the Santana Group, Brazil, about 125 to 112 million years ago. Tupuxuara is a close relative of Thalassodromeus, and both form a group that is either called Thalassodrominae or Thalassodromidae.

Pterodactyloidea is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs, and contains the most derived members of this group of flying reptiles. They appeared during the middle Jurassic Period, and differ from the basal rhamphorhynchoids by their short tails and long wing metacarpals. The most advanced forms also lack teeth, and by the late Cretaceous, all known pterodactyloids were toothless. Many species had well-developed crests on the skull, a form of display taken to extremes in giant-crested forms like Nyctosaurus and Tupandactylus. Pterodactyloids were the last surviving pterosaurs when the order became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, together with the non-avian dinosaurs and most marine reptiles.