Lonchodectidae

Lonchodectidae or LonchodraconidaePêgas, R.V., Holgado, B., Leal, M.E.C., 2019. "''Targaryendraco wiedenrothi'' gen. nov. (Pterodactyloidea, Pteranodontoidea, Lanceodontia) and recognition of a new cosmopolitan lineage of Cretaceous toothed pterodactyloids", ''Historical Biology'', 1–15. doi:10.1080/08912963.2019.1690482 is a group of pterosaurs within the clade Pterodactyloidea. It has variously been considered to be within Ctenochasmatoidea, Azhdarchoidea and Pteranodontia.Witton, M.P., Martill, D.M., and Green, M. (2009). "On pterodactyloid diversity in the British Wealden (Lower Cretaceous) and a reappraisal of “Palaeornis” ''cliftii'' Mantell, 1844." ''Cretaceous Research'', 30: 676–686. They are notable for their high, conical tooth sockets and raised alveolar margins.

Taxonomic history

Lonchodectidae was first named by paleontologist Reginald Walter Hooley in 1914, and was first considered to only contain species of ''Lonchodectes''.Unwin, David M. 2001. "An overview of the pterosaur assemblage from the Cambridge Greensand (Cretaceous) of Eastern England". ''Mitteilungen as dem Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe'' 4: 189–222 A taxonomic review of pterosaurs from the Cambridge Greensand in 2013 considered ''Lonchodectes'' a ''nomen dubium'', and named a new family, Lonchodraconidae, for the remaining species, which had been moved to the new genus ''Lonchodraco''. ''Yixianopterus'', ''Unwindia'', '' Prejanopterus'', and '' Serradraco'' have also been considered possible lonchodectids. A taxonomic review of Lonchodectidae by Russian paleontologist Alexander Averianov in 2020 limited the clade to '' Ikrandraco'', ''Lonchodectes'', and ''Lonchodraco'', thus finding Lonchodraconidae to be synonymous with the earlier name Lonchodectidae.

Description

The most diagnostic features of Lonchodectidae pertain to the teeth and jaws. The teeth on both the upper and lower jaws are generally small, do not vary in size through the length of the jaw, and are placed on raised alveolar margins. The upper palate has a prominent ridge. One genus, ''Lonchodraco'', has prominent crests at the tips of both the skull and mandible, while another, ''Ikrandraco'', only has a crest on the mandible. Only ''Lonchodraco'' and ''Ikrandraco'' preserve postcrania, which is similar to other lanceodontians.

Classification

The cladogram below is a topology recovered by Longrich and colleagues in 2018. In their analysis, they placed the family Lonchodectidae as the sister taxon of the family Boreopteridae, while also placed within the more inclusive group Ornithocheiromorpha.Longrich, N.R., Martill, D.M., and Andres, B. (2018)
"Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary."
''PLoS Biology'', 16(3): e2001663.

Other studies including Pêgas ''et al.'' (2019) and Holgado & Pêgas (2020) however, have only included ''Ikrandraco'' and ''Lonchodraco'' in this group, therefore using the name Lonchodraconidae instead.

Paleobiology

Lifestyle

Postcranial material similar to those of azhdarchoids has previously been referred to ''Lonchodectes''; however, this material has later been referred to the azhdarchoid ''Ornithostoma''.Averianov, A.O. (2012). "''Ornithostoma sedgwicki'' – valid taxon of azhdarchoid pterosaurs." ''Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS'', 316(1): 40–49. ''Ikrandraco'' is presumed to have been piscivorous, though this is not completely confirmed. ''Lonchodraco'' bore sensor pits similar to those of modern probe feeding birds; though it appears to be unlikely that it was a probe feeder due to its large size and broad jaw ends, it has been suggested that it similarly procured food items on the ground or in water such as fish or insects.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1837188

Pteranodontoids
Prehistoric reptile families