''Araripedactylus'' was a large genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur, known from a single wing bone found in 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 ...

Santana Formation of Brazil. The genus was in 1977 named by Peter Wellnhofer who, unaware that the name '' Araripesaurus'' had been published by Price in 1971, presumed he was naming the first pterosaur genus from Brazil. The genus name refers to the

Araripe Plateau The Chapada do Araripe, also known as the Serra do Araripe, is a '' chapada'' (plateau) in northeastern Brazil. The chapada forms the boundary of Ceará and Pernambuco states, and forms the watershed between the Jaguaribe River of Ceará, which flo ...

and combines this with ''daktylos'', Greek for "finger", a common element in pterosaur names since '' Pterodactylus''. The type species is ''Araripedactylus dehmi''; 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 the German paleontologist

Richard Dehm Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

, a professor at the Munich institute that acquired the only known specimen in 1975. The holotype, BSP 1975 I 166, consists of a single phalanx, the first of the right wing finger, embedded in an elongated chalk nodule. When the nodule was split to reveal the fossil, its distal end was damaged. The exemplar is that of an adult individual. The phalanx has a length of 55 centimetres. Its bone walls are described by Wellnhofer as exceptionally thick for a pterosaur, measuring . Wellnhofer, because of the lack of further information, placed ''Araripedactylus'' in a general Pterodactyloidea. Alexander Kellner in 2000 assumed that in view of its provenance the species likely belonged to Ornithocheiroidea (''sensu'' Kellner) and concluded that the phalanx was hard to distinguish from that of other large pterosaurs from the formation, such as '' Anhanguera'' or '' Tropeognathus''. He could not confirm the exceptional thickness of the bone walls, nor any other autapomorphy of the genus. The wingspan of ''Araripedactylus'' was estimated by Wellnhofer as at least 4.8 meters (15.75 ft), and in another publication at 5 meters (16.5 ft).

References

Literature

*Wellnhofer, P., 1991, "The Santana Formation Pterosaurs", In: J. G. Maisey (ed.), ''Santana fossils: An Illustrated Atlas'', T.F.H. Publications, Neptune, New Jersey, pp. 351–370

References

Literature

See also