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Thapunngaka
''Thapunngaka'' ( meaning "Spear Mouth" in Wanamara) is a genus of anhanguerid pterosaur recovered from the Early Cretaceous marine Toolebuc Formation in Queensland, Australia. ''Thapunngaka'' represents the largest pterosaur known from the Australian continent. The genus currently contains a single species, ''Thapunngaka shawi''. Discovery and naming ''Thapunngaka'' was initially discovered in June 2011 within the Lower Cretaceous, Upper Albian Toolebuc Formation on Wanamara Country, North West Queensland, Australia by fossicker Mr. Len Shaw. It would later be excavated from the surrounding rock by the Kronosaurus Korner Museum. The genus would later be described in 2021 on the basis of the holotype ''KKF 494'', representing only a partial mandible lacking dentition. Additionally, after the initial description the Kronosaurus Korner museum would later put the holotype of display for the general public. The type species ''Thapunngaka shawi'' was described by Timothy Richards, Pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toolebuc Formation
The Toolebuc Formation is a geological formation that extends from Queensland across South Australia and the Northern Territory in Australia, whose strata date back to the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous. Dinosaurs,Weishampel ''et al.'', 2004, pp.573-574 pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, protostegid turtles, sharks, chimaeroids and bony fish remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation. Description Deposition occurred in a cool to temperate inland sea setting and the present lithology is dominantly made up of limey shales with abundant ''Inoceramus'' bivalve shells. Ichthyosaurs and protostegid turtles were the most common marine reptiles at this time in the Eromanga Sea, in contrast to older Aptian deposits such as the Bulldog Shale of South Australia, which show that plesiosaurs were previously more abundant and also more diverse. The Toolebuc Formation is one of the richest known sources of Mesozoic vertebrate fossils in Australia, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous ( geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Proposals for the exact age of the Barremian-Aptian boundary ranged from 126 to 117 Ma until recently (as of 2019), but based on drillholes in Svalbard the defining early Aptian Oceanic Anoxic Event 1a (OAE1a) was carbon isotope dated to 123.1±0.3 Ma, limiting the possible range for the boundary to c. 122–121 Ma. There is a possible link between this anoxic event and a series of Early Cretaceous large igneous provinces (LIP). The Ontong Java-Manihiki-Hikurangi large igneous province, emplaced in the South Pacific at c. 120 Ma, is by far the largest LIP in Earth's history. The Ontong Java Plateau today covers an area of 1,860,000 km2. In the Indian Ocean another LIP began to form at c. 120 Ma, the Kerguelen P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mythunga
''Mythunga'' is a genus of anhanguerid pterosaur from the late Early Cretaceous of Australia. Fossil remains of ''Mythunga'' dated back to the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous, and the animal itself was found to be a close relative of another Australian anhanguerid called ''Ferrodraco''. Discovery and naming ''Mythunga'' is known from a partial skull, holotype QM F18896 found in April 1991 by Philip Gilmore in marine rocks of the late Albian-age Toolebuc Formation at Dunluce Station west of Hughenden, Queensland. Only the middle snout and corresponding parts of the lower jaws are known, including the rear of a left premaxilla, the lower parts of both maxillae, the rear dentaries and a right splenial. They were three-dimensionally preserved, associated in a chalk nodule. It represents a subadult individual. The fossil was prepared by Angela Hatch of the Queensland Museum, both by mechanical means and by an acid bath. The type species ''Mythunga camara'' was named and descri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liaoningopterus
''Liaoningopterus'', sometimes misspelled as "Liaoningopteryx", was a genus of anhanguerid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Chaoyang, Liaoning, China. The genus was named in 2003 by Wang Xiaolin and Zhou Zhonghe. The type species is ''Liaoningopterus gui''. The genus name is derived from Liaoning and a Latinized Greek ''pteron'', "wing". The specific name honors Professor Gu Zhiwei, an invertebrate specialist who has pioneered the study of the Jehol Biota. Description The genus is based on holotype IVPP V-13291, a crushed partial skull and skeleton including the jaws, teeth, a cervical vertebra, and bones of the finger supporting the wing. It was a large pterosaur with skull alone estimated at long, bearing low crests close to the tip of the beak on both lower and upper jaws. The snout crest was long, was symmetrical in form and had a maximum height of . The edge of the upper jaw was very straight. The tee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludodactylus
''Ludodactylus'' (meaning "play finger") is a genus of anhanguerid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous period (Aptian stage) of what is now the Crato Formation of the Araripe Basin in Ceará, Brazil. The type and only species is ''L. sibbicki''. The generic name ''Ludodactylus'' refers to the fact that the animal had the combination of teeth and a ''Pteranodon''-like head crest, similar to many toy pterosaurs, and no such creature was known to exist until the discovery of ''Ludodactylus''. However, ''Ludodactylus'' is not the only pterosaur known to possess these features, its very close relative ''Caulkicephalus'' is another example. Etymology The genus was named by Eberhard Frey ''et al.'' in 2003 and contains one known species, ''Ludodactylus sibbicki''. The name is derived from Latin ''ludus'', "play" and Greek ''daktylos'', "finger". ''Ludus'' refers to the fact, long lamented by paleontologists, that many toy pterosaurs combined teeth with a ''Pteranodon''-l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guidraco
''Guidraco'' (Chin. ''gui'' (鬼) "malicious ghost" + Lat. ''draco'' "dragon") is an extinct genus of toothed pterodactyloid pterosaur known from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning Province, northeast China. According to many recent studies, ''Guidraco'' is a member of the group Anhanguerinae, a subfamily belonging to the larger group Anhangueridae. Discovery ''Guidraco'' is known only from the holotype IVPP V17083, an articulated partial skeleton consisting of a nearly complete skull, lower jaws and a series of four, second to fifth, cervical vertebrae. It was collected at Sihedang near Lingyuan City in the Liaoning Province from the Jiufotang Formation, dating to the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago. Etymology ''Guidraco'' was first described and named by Wang Xiaolin, Alexander W.A. Kellner, Jiang Shunxing and Cheng Xin in 2012 and the type species is ''Guidraco venator''. The generic name is derived from Chinese ''gui'' (鬼), "m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caulkicephalus
''Caulkicephalus'' is a genus of anhanguerid pterosaur from the Isle of Wight off the coast of England. It lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. Discovery and naming Between 1995 and 2003, bone fragments of an unknown pterosaur were found at the Yaverland locality near Sandown. The discoveries were made in or from a brown clay layer from the Wessex Formation of the Wealden Group, stemming from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian age, about 130 million years ago). In 2005 a new genus was named and described by Lorna Steel, David Martill, David Unwin and John Winch. The type species is ''Caulkicephalus trimicrodon''. The genus name is a translation of "Caulkhead", a traditional nickname for Isle of Wight residents, partially derived from Greek ''kephale'', "head". The specific name, ''trimicrodon'', means "three small teeth", in reference to the dentition. Description The holotype is IWCMS 2002.189.1, 2, 4: three pieces, more or less contiguou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anhanguerinae
Anhangueridae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. They were among the last pterosaurs to possess teeth. A recent study discussing the group considered the Anhangueridae to be typified by a premaxillary crest and a lateral expansion in the distal rostrum. The same study presented a cladistic analysis, for which an "agreement subtree" was calculated. The Anhangueridae was found to be sister taxon to the large crested ''Tropeognathus''. Relationships There are competing theories of ornithocheiromorph phylogeny (evolutionary relationships). Below is cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ... following a topology recovered by Brian Andres, using the most recent iteration of his data set. The cladogram below follows Pêgas ''et al.'' (201 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uktenadactylus
''Uktenadactylus'' is a genus of anhanguerid pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous Paw Paw Formation of Texas, United States and the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight, England. Fossil remains of ''Uktenadactylus'' dated back to the Early Cretaceous period (Barremian to Cenomanian stages), from about 125 to 100 million years ago. Discovery and naming In 1994, Yuong Nam-Lee named a new species within the genus ''Coloborhynchus'': ''Coloborhynchus wadleighi'', based on a partial snout found in 1992 in Albian layers in Tarrant County, holotype SMU 73058 ( Shuler Museum of Paleontology, Southern Methodist University at Dallas). The specific name honors the collector of the fossil, Chris Wadleigh. The reference of the species to the genus ''Coloborhynchus'' was based on the fact that both ''C. wadleighi'' and the type species of ''Coloborhynchus'', ''Coloborhynchus clavirostris'', share the trait of having three pairs of teeth laterally placed within a broad snout ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicorhynchus
''Nicorhynchus'' (meaning "knucker snout", in reference to its likely ecology) is a genus of anhanguerid pterosaur from the Cretaceous period. It contains two species, the type species, ''N. capito'', from the Cambridge Greensand of England, and ''N. fluviferox'' from the Kem Kem Group of Morocco. These species were previously assigned to ''Coloborhynchus''. History The genus ''Coloborhynchus'' has had a convoluted history, with many species having been assigned to the genus. In 2013, Rodrigues and Kellner considered ''Coloborhynchus'' to be monotypic, containing only ''C. clavirostris'', and placed most other species in other genera, or declared them '' nomina dubia''. One of these species was ''Coloborhynchus capito'', which was originally named by Harry Seeley in 1870 as a species of ''Ornithocheirus''. Its holotype is CAMSM B 54625, a snout. In 2001, this species was moved to ''Coloborhynchus'' by David Unwin, who also synonymized ''Ornithocheirus reedi'' (known from a lost sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coloborhynchus
''Coloborhynchus'' is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur belonging to the family Anhangueridae, though it has also been recovered as a member of the Ornithocheiridae in some studies. ''Coloborhynchus'' is known from the Lower Cretaceous of England (Valanginian age, 140 to 136 million years ago), and depending on which species are included, possibly the Albian and Cenomanian ages (113 to 93.9 million years ago) as well. ''Coloborhynchus'' was once thought to be the largest known toothed pterosaur, however, a specimen of the closely related ''Tropeognathus'' is now thought to have had a larger wingspan. History and classification Like many ornithocheiroid pterosaurs named during the 19th century, ''Coloborhynchus'' has a highly convoluted history of classification. Over the years numerous species have been assigned to it, and often, species have been shuffled between ''Coloborhynchus'' and related genera by various researchers. In 1874 Richard Owen, rejecting the creation by H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aerodraco
''Aerodraco'' (meaning "air dragon") is a genus of anhanguerid pterosaur from the Albian–Cenomanian-age Cambridge Greensand of England. It contains only one species, ''Aerodraco sedgwickii''. It was originally assigned to the genus ''Pterodactylus''. Discovery and naming In 1859, Sir Richard Owen named pterosaur material from the Cambridge Greensand of England as ''Pterodactylus sedgwickii''.R. Owen. 1859. Supplement (No. I) to the Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Cretaceous Formations. Palaeontographical Society Monographs 1–19 At the time, ''Pterodactylus'' was a wastebasket taxon; all sorts of unrelated pterosaurs were assigned to that genus. In 1870, Harry Seeley reassigned it to ''Ornithocheirus'', another wastebasket taxon. Its specific name honors Adam Sedgwick. It was in 1869 renamed by Seeley into a ''Ptenodactylus sedgwickii'',Seeley, H.G., 1869, ''Index to the fossil remains of Aves, Ornithosauria, and Reptilia, from the Secondary System of Strata arrange ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
