Caviramidae is a group of basal
pterosaurs. It was erected by paleontologist Matthew G. Baron in 2020. It was defined as the least inclusive clade that includes ''
Arcticodactylus cromptonellus
''Arcticodactylus'' is a genus of basal pterosaur living during the Late Triassic in the area of present Greenland. Its only species was previously attributed to ''Eudimorphodon'', and its closest relatives may have been ''Eudimorphodon'' or ''A ...
'' and ''
Caviramus schesaplanensis''.
The members of Caviramidae are also considered to belong to either the family
Eudimorphodontidae (''Arcticodactylus'' and ''
Carniadactylus''), the family
Raeticodactylidae (''Caviramus'' and ''
Raeticodactylus
''Raeticodactylus'' is a genus of non- pterodactyloid pterosaur from the late Norian-early Rhaetian-age Upper Triassic lower Kössen Formation of the central Austroalpine of Grisons, Switzerland. It is known from holotype BNM 14524, a single ...
''), or just basal
eopterosaurians (''
Austriadraco'' and ''
Seazzadactylus
''Seazzadactylus'' is a basal pterosaur genus that during the late Triassic lived in the area of present Italy.
Discovery
In 1997, amateur paleontologist Umberto Venier discovered the skeleton of a pterosaur in a boulder laying in the bed of the ...
'').
However, Baron, the author of Caviramidae, concluded in his analyses that both Eopterosauria and Eudimorphodontidae are not
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
groups, therefore he created the family Caviramidae to contain most of the eudimorphodontids and basal eopterosaurians. Additionally, Baron included the clade Austriadraconidae as a subgroup within the Caviramidae to include three genera: ''Arcticodactylus'', ''Austriadraco'', and ''Seazzadactylus''.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q105360070
Pterosaurs