Tendaguripterus

Tendaguripterus ('Tendaguru wing') is a genus of pterosaur that lived during the Late Jurassicperiod in what is now Tanzania. The only specimen – a dentary (lower jaw) – was discovered in strata of the Tendaguru Formation in southeastern Lindi. Between 1910 and 1912, members of a German fossil expedition to the Tendaguru Formation in then-German East Africa collected many pterosaur fossils from Site Jg. One fossil, an isolated dentary, was later taken to the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. This specimen was unnoticed for decades until in 1999, paleontologists David Unwin and Wolf-Dieter Heinrich scientifically described it as belonging to a new genus and species of pterosaur. They named it Tendaguripterus recki, the only known species, after German geologist Hans Reck.

Tendaguripterus' affinities are uncertain. In its original description, it was considered an intermediate stage of dsungaripteroid that was more derived than Germanodactylus but less derived than dsungaripterids like Dsungaripterus and Noripterus. However, in 2007 Brazilian paleontologist Alexander Kellner and colleagues placed it in its own family, Tendaguripteridae. The classification of this family within Pterodactyloidea is unknown. Based on Germanodactylus, its wingspan was about 1 meter (3.3 ft) wide. The dentary is short, robust, and tall, with four alveoli (tooth sockets) and two incomplete teeth preserved. Going posteriorly (towards the back), the dentary becomes over 1.5 times the height of the anterior (front) end, creating an extremely deep shape. Its toothrow looks scalloped (bumpy around the alveoli) in lateral view with intensely protruding teeth. It has been proposed that Tendaguripterus was durophagus, feeding on hard invertebrates like bivalves. Its fossils are known from the Tendaguru Formation, which was located on the southeastern coast of the landmass Gondwana during the Late Jurassic. Here it coexisted with other pterosaurs like "Rhamphorhynchus" tendagurensis and "Pterodactylus" brancai and dinosaurs like Giraffatitan and Kentrosaurus.