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Monofenestratan
Monofenestrata is an unranked group of pterosaurs that includes the family Wukongopteridae and the suborder Pterodactyloidea. The clade Monofenestrata was in 2009/2010 defined as the group consisting of ''Pterodactylus'' and all species sharing with ''Pterodactylus'' the synapomorphy of an external nostril confluent with the antorbital fenestra, the major skull opening on the side of the snout. The name is derived from Greek ''monos'', "single", and Latin ''fenestra'', "window". The concept was inspired by the discovery of ''Darwinopterus'', a species combining a pterodactyloid-type skull with a more basal build of the remainder of the body. The Darwinoptera, a primitive subgroup of monofenestratans showing this transitional anatomy, was also named for ''Darwinopterus'' and defined as all descendants of its common ancestor with ''Pterorhynchus''. The earliest known monofenestratan fossils have been found in the Stonesfield Slate formation of the United Kingdom, which dates to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeoistiodactylus
''Archaeoistiodactylus'' is an extinct genus of Wukongopteridae, wukongopterid pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic of China. Discovery and naming ''Archaeoistiodactylus'' is known from an incomplete skeleton with a partial skull and lower jaws. Catalogued as holotype specimen JPM04-0008, it was recovered from rocks of the Tiaojishan Formation in western Liaoning, China, which date to the Bathonian-Callovian stages of the Jurassic period. Apart from the skull, it preserves ribs, parts of the wings, hindlimbs and the pelvis. The neck, tail and feet of the specimen are lacking. ''Archaeoistiodactylus'' was first named and described by Lü Junchang and Fucha Xiaohui in 2010 in paleontology, 2010. The type (biology), type species is ''Archaeoistiodactylus linglongtaensis''. The generic name is a combination of the Greek ''archaios'', "ancient", with the name of the genus ''Istiodactylus'', referring to ''Archaeoistiodactylus'' being presumed to have been an older close relative of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douzhanopterus
''Douzhanopterus'' is an extinct genus of monofenestratan pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Liaoning, China. It contains a single species, ''D. zhengi'', named by Wang ''et al.'' in 2017. In many respects, it represents a transitional form between basal pterosaurs and the more specialized pterodactyloids; for instance, its tail is intermediate in length, still being about twice the length of the femur but relatively shorter compared to that of the more basal Wukongopteridae. Other intermediate traits include the relative lengths of the neck vertebrae and the retention of two, albeit reduced, phalanx bones in the fifth digit of the foot. Phylogenetically, ''Douzhanopterus'' is nested between the wukongopterids and a juvenile pterosaur specimen from Germany known as the "Painten pro-pterodactyloid", which is similar to ''Douzhanopterus'' in many respects but approaches pterodactyloids more closely elsewhere. Discovery and naming The holotype specimen of ''Douzhanopterus'', a ske ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Changchengopterus
''Changchengopterus'' is a genus of non-pterodactyloid pterosaur from Qinglong County in Hebei Province, China. The fossil specimen, holotype CYGB-0036, of the type and only species, ''Changchengopterus pani'', was found in the Tiaojishan Formation dating from the Callovian and named and described by Lü Junchang in 2009. The generic name combines the ''Changcheng'', the Great Wall of China, with a Latinised Greek ''pteron'', "wing". The specific name honours Pan Lijun, who collected the fossil and donated it to science. The holotype, a skeleton lacking the skull, represents a young juvenile, of which the combined paired wing elements measure just seventeen centimetres.Lü, J. (2009). "A new non-pterodactyloid pterosaur from Qinglong County, Hebei Province of China." ''Acta Geologica Sinica'' (English Edition), 83(2): 189-199. . In 2011, a second specimen was described, PMOL-AP00010, acquired in 2008 by the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning. It consists of a skeleton with lowe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caelidracones
The Caelidracones is a group of pterosaurs. The clade Caelidracones was defined in 2003 by David Unwin as the group consisting of the last common ancestor of ''Anurognathus ammoni'' and '' Quetzalcoatlus northropi'', and all its descendants. The name Caelidracones means "sky dragons" from Latin ''caelum'', "heaven", and ''draco'', "dragon" and is a reference to Harry Govier Seeley's 1901 book, ''Dragons of the Air''. Classification In Unwin's original classification, the Caelidracones were considered the sister group of the Dimorphodontidae within the Macronychoptera and consist of the Anurognathidae and the Lonchognatha. More recent studies of pterosaur relationships have found anurognathids and pterodactyloids to be sister groups, which would limit Caelidracones to just those two clades. Below is a cladogram showing the results of a phylogenetic analysis presented by Longrich, Martill, and Andres, 2018. This study found the two traditional groupings of ctenochasmatoids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pterodactyloidea
Pterodactyloidea (derived from the Greek words ''πτερόν'' (''pterón'', for usual ''ptéryx'') "wing", and ''δάκτυλος'' (''dáktylos'') "finger" meaning "winged finger", "wing-finger" or "finger-wing") is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs ("wing lizards"), and contains the most derived members of this group of flying reptiles. They appeared during the middle Jurassic Period, and differ from the basal (though paraphyletic) rhamphorhynchoids by their short tails and long wing metacarpals (hand bones). 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. "Pteroda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Jurassic
The Middle Jurassic is the second epoch of the Jurassic Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 163.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations containing land animal fossils include the Forest Marble Formation in England, the Kilmaluag Formation in Scotland,British Geological Survey. 2011Stratigraphic framework for the Middle Jurassic strata of Great Britain and the adjoining continental shelf: research report RR/11/06 British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham. the Daohugou Beds in China, the Itat Formation in Russia, and the Isalo III Formation of western Madagascar. Paleogeography During the Middle Jurassic Epoch, Pangaea began to separate into Laurasia and Gondwana, and the Atlantic Ocean formed. Eastern Laurasia was tectonically active as the Cimmerian plate continued to collide with Laurasia's southern coast, completely closing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean. A subduction zone ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eupterodactyloidea
Eupterodactyloidea (meaning "true Pterodactyloidea") is an extinct group of pterodactyloid pterosaurs that existed from the latest Late Jurassic to the latest Late Cretaceous periods (Tithonian to Maastrichtian stages). Eupterodactyloids lived on all continents except Antarctica. Classification Eupterodactyloidea was named by S. Christopher Bennett in 1994 as an infraorder of the suborder Pterodactyloidea. Bennett defined it as an apomorphy-based clade. However, in 2010, Brian Andres re-defined the group as a stem-based taxon in his dissertation, and then formalized the definition in 2014 as all pterosaurs more closely related to ''Pteranodon longiceps'' than to ''Pterodactylus antiquus''. The slightly more exclusive group Ornithocheiroidea was re-defined in 2003 by Alexander Kellner. He defined it as the least inclusive clade containing ''Anhanguera blittersdorffi'', ''Pteranodon longiceps'', ''Dsungaripterus weii'', and ''Quetzalcoatlus northropi''. Ornithocheiroidea has often b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bathonian
In the geologic timescale the Bathonian is an age and stage of the Middle Jurassic. It lasted from approximately 168.3 Ma to around 166.1 Ma (million years ago). The Bathonian Age succeeds the Bajocian Age and precedes the Callovian Age. Stratigraphic definitions The Bathonian Stage takes its name from Bath, a spa town in England built on Jurassic limestone (the Latinized form of the town name is ''Bathonium''). The name was introduced in scientific literature by Belgian geologist d'Omalius d'Halloy in 1843. The original type locality was located near Bath. The French palaeontologist Alcide d'Orbigny was in 1852 the first to define the exact length of the stage. The base of the Bathonian is at the first appearance of ammonite species '' Parkinsonia (Gonolkites) convergens'' in the stratigraphic column. The global reference profile for the base of the Bathonian (a GSSP) was ratified as Ravin du Bès, Bas-Auran area, Alpes de Haute Provence, France in 2009. The top of the Bat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 descendants, nor does it show how much they have changed, so many differing evolutionary trees can be consistent with the same cladogram. A cladogram uses lines that branch off in different directions ending at a clade, a group of organisms with a last common ancestor. There are many shapes of cladograms but they all have lines that branch off from other lines. The lines can be traced back to where they branch off. These branching off points represent a hypothetical ancestor (not an actual entity) which can be inferred to exhibit the traits shared among the terminal taxa above it. This hypothetical ancestor might then provide clues about the order of evolution of various features, adaptation, and other evolutionary narratives about ance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phylogenetic
In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms. These relationships are determined by Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference methods that focus on observed heritable traits, such as DNA sequences, protein amino acid sequences, or morphology. The result of such an analysis is a phylogenetic tree—a diagram containing a hypothesis of relationships that reflects the evolutionary history of a group of organisms. The tips of a phylogenetic tree can be living taxa or fossils, and represent the "end" or the present time in an evolutionary lineage. A phylogenetic diagram can be rooted or unrooted. A rooted tree diagram indicates the hypothetical common ancestor of the tree. An unrooted tree diagram (a network) makes no assumption about the ancestral line, and does ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeopterodactyloidea
Archaeopterodactyloidea (meaning "ancient Pterodactyloidea") is an extinct clade of pterodactyloid pterosaurs that lived from the middle Late Jurassic to the latest Early Cretaceous periods (Kimmeridgian to Albian stages) of Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. It was named by Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in 1996 as the group that contains ''Germanodactylus'', ''Pterodactylus'', the Ctenochasmatidae and the Gallodactylidae. In 2003, Kellner defined the clade as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of ''Pterodactylus'', ''Ctenochasma'' and ''Gallodactylus'' and all its descendants. Although phylogenetic analyses that based on David Unwin's 2003 analysis do not recover monophyletic Archaeopterodactyloidea, phylogenetic analyses that based on Kellner's analyses, or the analyses of Brian Andres (2008, 2010, 2018) recover monophyletic Archaeopterodactyloidea at the base of the Pterodactyloidea. The Antarctic Campanian specimen MN 7801-V was referred to Archa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sordes
''Sordes'' was a small pterosaur from the late Jurassic ( Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian) Karabastau Svita of Kazakhstan. This genus was named in 1971 by Aleksandr Grigorevich Sharov. The type species is ''Sordes pilosus''. The genus name is Latin for "filth" or "scum"; but Sharov translates it as "", which means "devil" or "evil spirit", so the intended translation is "hairy devil" (the specific name is Latin for "hairy"; despite ''sordes'' being feminine, it has not yet been emended to ''pilosa''). Discovery ''Sordes'' is based on the holotype PIN 2585/3, which consists of a crushed relatively complete skeleton on a slab. It was found in the 1960s at the foothills of the Karatau in Kazakhstan. Sharov had already referred a paratype or second specimen: PIN 2470/1, again a fairly complete skeleton on a slab. By 2003 another six specimens had been discovered. Description ''Sordes'' had a 0.63 m (2 ft) wingspan. The wings were relatively short. ''Sordes'' had, according t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
