''Targaryendraco'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of pterodactyloid

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 ...

from the

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 Pro ...

period (

Hauterivian The Hauterivian is, in the geologic timescale, an age in the Early Cretaceous Epoch or a stage in the Lower Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 132.9 ± 2 Ma and 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Hauterivian is preceded by the Va ...

stage) of Hannover, northern Germany. Fossil remains of ''Targaryendraco'' dated back about 132 million years ago.

Discovery and naming

In July 1984, amateur paleontologist Kurt Wiedenroth discovered a fragmentary pterosaur skeleton in the clay pit of

Engelbostel Engelbostel is a district of the city of Langenhagen in the Hanover (region), Hanover region. It was independent until 1974 when the village was incorporated into Langenhagen. The town is located southwest of the Hannover-Langenhagen airport. To ...

at the southern edge of the city of

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

. In 1990, Rupert Wild described the find as a new species of '' Ornithocheirus'': ''Ornithocheirus wiedenrothi''. 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 ...

honors Wiedenroth as discoverer. Wild considered the skeleton to lie evolutionary between ''Ornithocheirus compressirostris'' (now the holotype of ''

Lonchodectes ''Lonchodectes'' (meaning "lance biter") was a genus of lonchodectid pterosaur from several formations dating to the Turonian (Late Cretaceous) of England, mostly in the area around Kent. The species belonging to it had been assigned to ''Orni ...

'') and ''Ornithocheirus giganteus'' (now the holotype of '' Lonchodraco''). ''O. compressirostris'' was at the time seen as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of '' Ornithocheirus'', but it was meanwhile shown that the correct type species is ''O. simus''. 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 ...

, SMNS 56628, was found in rocks of the Stadthagen Formation dating from the earliest

, about 132 million years old. It consists of a partial skeleton with lower jaws. It contains the front and the rear of the symphysis of the lower jaws, a right articular, a rib piece, the distal ends of a left radius and ulna, the proximal and distal end of a left third metacarpal and a piece of a phalanx, probably the first of the left third finger. The fossil is part of the collection of the

State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart The State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart (german: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart), abbreviated SMNS, is one of the two state of Baden-Württemberg's natural history museums. Together with the State Museum of Natural History ...

. It is the most complete pterosaur specimen from the Cretaceous of Germany. In their study of 2010, Fletcher & Salisbury argued for ''O. wiedenrothi'' to be an

ornithocheirid Ornithocheiridae (or ornithocheirids, meaning "bird hands") is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. These pterosaurs were among the last to possess teeth. Members that belong to this group lived from the Early to Late Cr ...

closely related to the then unnamed ''

Aussiedraco ''Aussiedraco'' is a genus of targaryendraconian pterodactyloid pterosaur from the early Cretaceous of Australia. Description ''Aussiedraco'' is known from holotype QM F10613, a partial mandibular symphysis housed at the Queensland Museum, ...

'' and another pterosaur specimen from the Cretaceous of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. In 2013, Ford reported it to be a species of ''Lonchodectes''.Ford, T.L., 2013. "Will the real ''Lonchodectes'' fly in?", ''Short Communications/International Symposium on Pterosaurs – Rio Ptero 2013'', 65–67. In a study of the same year, Rodrigues & Kellner concluded that it wasn't ''Ornithocheirus'', and was also not part of their newly erected

''Lonchodraco''. In 2019, Abel ''et al.'' argued it to be potential new genus of lonchodectid.Abel, P., Hornung, J.J., Kear, B.P. & Sachs, S. 2019, "Reassessment of the enigmatic pterosaur ‘Ornithocheirus’ ''wiedenrothi'' from the Lower Cretaceous of Northern Germany", ''Journal of Morphology'' 280: 73–74. doi:10.1002/jmor.21003 Later in 2019, Pêgas ''et al.'' assigned ''O. wiedenrothi'' as the type species of ''Targaryendraco''. The generic name, which is formed from combining the name ''Targaryen'' with the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word and literally means 'Targaryen dragon', refers to the fictional House Targaryen (who ride dragons and use them as

heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...

) from the popular epic fantasy novel series ''

A Song of Ice and Fire ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, ''A Game of Thrones'', in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who init ...

''. The authors chose the name because the now black-colored bones of the fossil resemble the fictional dragons in the novels.Pêgas, 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

Description

In 2019, the describing authors abstained from giving a size estimate, in view of the fragmentary nature of the fossil. They estimated the

wingspan The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...

of the most closely related species at . They indicated a single distinguishing trait. It is an

autapomorphy In phylogenetics, an autapomorphy is a distinctive feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given taxon. That is, it is found only in one taxon, but not found in any others or outgroup taxa, not even those most closely related to t ...

, a unique derived character. The symphysis of the lower jaws has at the midline of its front an odontoid, or tooth-like, process, formed by a confluence of the side ridges of the occlusal groove, in the top surface of the joint dentaries.

Phylogeny

In 2019, ''Targaryendraco'' was placed within the Lanceodontia in an entirely new

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

called

Targaryendraconia Targaryendraconia is an extinct clade of lanceodontian pterosaurs that lived from the Early to Late Cretaceous period in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Classification Below is a cladogram following a topology by Pêga ...

, and was more precisely a member of the family Targaryendraconidae. In the latter clade it formed a polytomy with ''Aussiedraco'' and ''

Barbosania ''Barbosania'' is an extinct genus of crestless targaryendraconian pterosaur from the Cretaceous Romualdo Formation of the Santana Group of northeastern Brazil, dating to the Aptian to Albian. Discovery and naming ''Barbosania'' was named and ...

''. Below is a cladogram following Pêgas ''et al.'' (2019). In the analysis, they placed ''Targaryendraco'' in the clade Targaryendraconia as the sister taxon of ''

'' and ''

'', within the more inclusive group

Ornithocheirae Ornithocheirae is an extinct clade of pteranodontoid pterosaurs from the Early Cretaceous to the Late Cretaceous (Valanginian to Turonian stages) of Asia, Europe, North America and South America. It was named by Harry Seeley in 1870 as a family ...

References

{{Portal bar, Paleontology, Cretaceous, Germany Early Cretaceous pterosaurs of Europe Pteranodontoids Fossil taxa described in 2019