''Huaxiapterus'' (meaning "

Hua Xia ''Huaxia'' (華夏, ) is a historical concept representing the Chinese nation, and came from the self-awareness of a common cultural ancestry by the various confederations of pre-Qin ethnic ancestors of Han people. Etymology The earliest ...

hina Hina may refer to: People and deities * Hina (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Hina (chiefess), a name given to several noble ladies who lived in ancient Hawaii * Hina (goddess), the name assigned to ...

wing") is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

tapejarid Tapejaridae (from a Tupi word meaning "the old being") are a family of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Cretaceous period. Members are currently known from Brazil, England, Hungary, Morocco, Spain, the United States, and China. The most primit ...

pterodactyloid Pterodactyloidea (derived from the Greek words ''πτερόν'' (''pterón'', for usual ''ptéryx'') "wing", and ''δάκτυλος'' (''dáktylos'') "finger" meaning "winged finger", "wing-finger" or "finger-wing") is one of the two traditional ...

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 ...

from the Aptian-age

Lower Cretaceous Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Lower Wick is a small hamlet located in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated about five miles south west of Dursley, eig ...

Jiufotang Formation The Jiufotang Formation ( Chinese: 九佛堂组, pinyin: ''jiǔfótáng zǔ'') is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see ...

of Chaoyang, Liaoning, China. It is the second genus of tapejarid from this formation, after '' Sinopterus''. Three species are known (''H. jii'', "''H. corollatus''", and "''H. benxiensis''"), though they may not actually form a natural group with each other. It was first named by

Lü Junchang Lü Junchang (; 1965 – 9 October 2018) was a Chinese palaeontologist and professor at the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. An expert on Mesozoic reptiles, he described and named dozens of dinosaur and pterosaur taxa ...

and Yuan Chongxi.

Discovery

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 specime ...

of ''Huaxiapterus'' is ''H. jii'', which is based on GMN-03-11-001, a nearly complete skeleton and skull. While it was initially separated from the closely related '' Sinopterus'' by several characters including its larger size and larger crest, later studies showed that it was in fact more closely related to ''Sinopterus dongi'' than to either of the other two species of ''Huaxiapterus''. Some researchers have considered ''H. jii'' to be a species of ''Sinopterus'' for this reason, though a more thorough analysis has suggested it is slightly more primitive than ''Sinopterus''. The second species, "''H.''" ''corollatus'', is based on ZMNH M8131, another nearly complete skeleton from the same formation. The third species "''H.''" ''benxiensis'', based on specimen BXGM V0011, also comes from Liaoning. Because ''H. jii'' is the type species of its genus, and the other two species are not closely related to it, they will likely be renamed in the future. An additional species, ''H. atavismus'', was named in 2016 based on a small specimen XHPM 1009. It can be distinguished from other species by a groove on the second and third wing digits, a trait that is otherwise only known in the more basal

rhamphorhynchoid The Rhamphorhynchoidea forms one of the two suborders of pterosaurs and represents an evolutionary grade of primitive members of flying reptiles. This suborder is paraphyletic unlike the Pterodactyloidea, which arose from within the Rhamphorhync ...

pterosaurs; it was named after this trait, which appears to be an

atavism In biology, an atavism is a modification of a biological structure whereby an ancestral genetic trait reappears after having been lost through evolutionary change in previous generations. Atavisms can occur in several ways; one of which is whe ...

(or "evolutionary throwback"). However, this species was reassigned to the genus ''Sinopterus'' by Xinjun Zhang and colleagues in 2019, who also considered ''Huaxiapterus'' to be an invalid pterosaur genus.

Classification

The cladogram below follows the 2014 analysis by Brian Andres and colleagues, showing the placement of three ''Huaxiapterus'' species (''H. jii'', "''H.''" ''benxiensis'' and "''H.''" ''corollatus'') within the clade Tapejaromorpha. In 2019, a different analysis, this time by

Alexander Kellner Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner (born September 26, 1961) is a Brazilian geologist and paleontologist who is a leading expert in the field of studying pterosaurs. His research has focused mainly on fossil reptiles from the Cretaceous Period, i ...

and colleagues, had recovered the ''Huaxiapterus'' species "''H.''" ''benxiensis'' and "''H.''" ''corollatus'' in a more derived position within the

Tapejarinae Tapejaridae (from a Tupi word meaning "the old being") are a family of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Cretaceous period. Members are currently known from Brazil, England, Hungary, Morocco, Spain, the United States, and China. The most primit ...

, sister taxon to both '' Eopteranodon'' and ''Sinopterus''. The cladogram of their analysis is shown below:

References

External links

''Huaxiapterus''
in The Pterosauria

at The Grave Yard {{Taxonbar, from=Q988297 Early Cretaceous pterosaurs of Asia Tapejaromorphs Fossil taxa described in 2005 Taxa named by Lü Junchang Jiufotang fauna

Discovery

Classification

See also

References

External links