''Bergamodactylus'' is a putative genus of basal
pterosaur
Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to ...
which lived during the
Late Triassic
The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...
(early
Norian
The Norian is a division of the Triassic Period. It has the rank of an age (geochronology) or stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227 to million years ago. It was preceded by the Carnian and succeeded by the Rhaetian.
Stratigraphic defi ...
) in the area of present-day
Bergamo province
The Province of Bergamo ( it, provincia di Bergamo; lmo, proìnsa de Bèrghem) is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. It has a population of 1,112,187 (2017), an area of , and contains 243 ''comuni''. Its capital is the city of Bergamo.
...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
. Its only species is ''Bergamodactylus wildi''. It was named in 2015 based on a pterosaur specimen which had previously been regarded as a juvenile ''
Eudimorphodon'' or as identical to ''
Carniadactylus''.
Some Triassic pterosaur specialists consider the distinguishing features of ''Bergamodactylus'' to be invalid or insufficient to distinguish it from ''Carniadactylus'', and thus retain the specimen in that genus.
History
![Bergamodactylus skull](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Bergamodactylus_skull.jpg)
In 1978,
Rupert Wild described a small pterosaur specimen in the collection of the ''
Museo di Paleontologia dell´Università di Milano'', found near
Cene, Lombardy. He referred to it as the "Milan Exemplar" and identified it as a juvenile of ''
Eudimorphodon ranzii''. Wild noted considerable differences with the latter's
type specimen
In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...
but these were explained as reflecting the young age of the animal.
[Wild, R., 1978, "Die Flugsaurier (Reptilia, Pterosauria) aus der Oberen Trias von Cene bei Bergamo, Italien", ''Bolletino della Societa Paleontologica Italiana'', 17 (2): 176-256]
In 2009,
Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia Fabio is a given name descended from Latin ''Fabius'' and very popular in Italy and Latin America (due to Italian migration). Its English equivalent is Fabian.
The name is written without an accent in Italian and Spanish, but is usually accented ...
confirmed an earlier conclusion by
Alexander Kellner that the specimen must have been at least subadult in view of the fusion of the scapula and the
coracoid, the upper wristbones being fused into a syncarpal, and the fusion of the extensor process on the first wing phalanx. Dalla Vecchia referred the specimen to ''
Carniadactylus rosenfeldi
''Carniadactylus'' is a genus of pterosaur which existed in Europe during the Late Triassic period (late Carnian or early Norian, about 228 million years agoBarrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribu ...
''.
In 2015, Kellner concluded that the Milan Exemplar represented a different species from ''Carniadactylus''. It showed differences in build that could not be explained by individual variation, it was much smaller though of similar age, and it was of a younger geological age. He named a separate genus and species ''Bergamodactylus wildi''. The generic name combines a reference to
Bergamo
Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...
with a Greek δάκτυλος, ''daktylos'', "finger", a usual suffix in pterosaur names since ''
Pterodactylus''. The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
honours Wild.Kellner placed ''Bergamodactylus'', within the
Novialoidea, in the
Campylognathoidea.
In 2018, Dalla Vecchia argued that Kellner's observations on development in pterosaurs were oversimplified, and that the Milan Exemplar's distinguishing features were ambiguous, invalid, or individual variation at best. As a result, Dalla Vecchia referred the specimen back to ''Carniadactylus'', rendering ''Bergamodactylus wildi'' a junior synonym of ''Carniadactylus rosenfeldi''.
Description
![Bergamodactylus NT](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Bergamodactylus_NT.jpg)
The
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
, MPUM 6009, was found in a layer of the
Calcari di Zorzino Formation dating from the early
Norian
The Norian is a division of the Triassic Period. It has the rank of an age (geochronology) or stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227 to million years ago. It was preceded by the Carnian and succeeded by the Rhaetian.
Stratigraphic defi ...
(upper
Alaunian).
It consists of a partial skeleton including the skull, compressed on a single plate. It is largely articulated and includes the lower jaws, most of the wings, much of the vertebral column except the tail, and hindlimb elements. Some bones have only been preserved as impressions.
''Bergamodactylus'' is one of the smallest known pterosaurs: Kellner in 2015 estimated the wingspan at just 465 millimetres. He also established some distinguishing traits. The
postorbital bone is slender with a thin branch towards the
frontal bone
The frontal bone is a bone in the human skull. The bone consists of two portions.''Gray's Anatomy'' (1918) These are the vertically oriented squamous part, and the horizontally oriented orbital part, making up the bony part of the forehead, par ...
. The
praemaxilla does not reach the lower rim of the external nostril. The fourth
metacarpal is short, with only 40% of the length of the
humerus
The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...
and 30% of the length of the
ulna
The ulna (''pl''. ulnae or ulnas) is a long bone found in the forearm that stretches from the elbow to the smallest finger, and when in anatomical position, is found on the medial side of the forearm. That is, the ulna is on the same side of t ...
. The thighbone is short, attaining just half of the length of either the ulna or the first wing finger phalanx.
''Bergamodactylus'' has multi-cusped teeth like ''Eudimorphodon'' but their number strongly differs: fourteen in both the upper jaw and the lower jaw as against respectively twenty-nine and twenty-eight in the latter species. Additional differences with ''Carniadactylus'' include a tooth row that extends further to the rear, a lower mandibula, a higher placed deltopectoral crest on the humerus and a shorter upper part of the kinked
pteroid. ''Bergamodactylus'' has a short second phalanx of the wing finger in common with ''Carniadactylus''.
See also
*
List of pterosaur genera
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q20668509
Late Triassic pterosaurs of Europe
Fossil taxa described in 2015
Taxa named by Alexander Kellner
Novialoids
Fossils of Italy