Arambourgiania
Arambourgiania Temporal range:
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Holotype fossil cast at Museum Histoire Naturelle, Paris | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Order: | †Pterosauria |
Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
Family: | †Azhdarchidae |
Subfamily: | † Quetzalcoatlinae
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Genus: | †Arambourgiania Nessov vide Nessov & Yarkov, 1989 |
Species: | †A. philadelphiae
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Binomial name | |
†Arambourgiania philadelphiae (Arambourg, 1959)
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Synonyms | |
Genus synonymy
Species synonymy
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Arambourgiania is an extinct genus of
History of discovery
In the early 1940s, a railway worker during repairs on the Amman-Damascus railroad near Russeifa found a two foot long fossil bone. In 1943 this was acquired by the director of a nearby phosphate mine, Amin Kawar, who brought it to the attention of a British archeologist, Fielding, after the war. This generated some publicity — the bone was even shown to Abdullah I of Jordan — but more importantly, it made the scientific community aware of the find.
In 1953 the fossil was sent to
In 1975 Douglas A. Lawson, studying the related Quetzalcoatlus, concluded the bone was not a metacarpal but a cervical vertebra.
In the eighties, Russian
Early 1995, paleontologists
Frey and Martill rejected the suggestion that Arambourgiania was a nomen dubium or identical to Quetzalcoatlus and affirmed its validity in relation to "Titanopteryx".
Nesov in 1984 had placed the species within
In 2016, an Azhdarchid cervical vertebra was described from the Coon Creek Formation of McNairy County, Tennessee and referred to Arambourgiania philadelphiae. This find extends Arambourgiania's geographic range to North America.[1]
In 2018, topotype specimens were located in Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich, Germany that were placed there in 1966 from Jordan and probably represent additional elements of the holotype individual. These include the "fragments of two cervical vertebrae, a neural arch, a left femur, a ?radius, and a metacarpal IV" and other indeterminate fragments.[3]
Description
The holotype, VF 1, consists of a very elongated cervical vertebra, probably the fifth. Today the middle section is missing; the original find was about 62 cm (24 in) long, but had been sawed into three parts. Most of the fossil consists of an internal infilling or mold; the thin bone walls are missing on most of the surface. The find had not presented the whole vertebra; a piece was absent from its posterior end as well.
Frey and Martill estimated the total length to have been 78 cm (31 in), using for comparison the relative position of the smallest shaft diameter of the fifth cervical vertebra of Quetzalcoatlus. From this again the total neck length was extrapolated at about 3 m (9.8 ft). From the relatively slender vertebra the length dimension was then selected to be compared to that of Quetzalcoatlus, estimated at 66 cm (26 in) long, resulting in a ratio of 1.18. Applying that ratio to the overall size, Frey and Martill in the late 1990s concluded that the wingspan of Arambourgiania had been 11–13 m (36–43 ft), compared with the 10–11 m (33–36 ft) wingspan of Quetzalcoatlus, and that Arambourgiania was thus the largest pterosaur then known.[4][5]
However, the estimate proposed by Frey and Martill was taken into question and the later estimates of wingspan have been more moderate, for the remains are too fragmentary to estimate a gigantic size. The researchers who described Phosphatodraco stated that the wingspan of Arambourgiania was more likely at 7 m (23 ft), but this estimate was not given a rationale.[6] In 2010, Mark Witton and Michael Habib argued that a 7 m (23 ft) wingspan is an underestimate, while a 11–13 m (36–43 ft) wingspan is an overestimate.[7] In 2022, Gregory S. Paul proposed that Arambourgiania had a wingspan of 8–9 m (26–30 ft), smaller than that of Quetzalcoatlus or Hatzegopteryx.[8]
Classification
Below is a
Neoazhdarchia
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See also
Notes
- ^ a b Harrell, T. Lynn Jr.; Gibson, Michael A.; Langston, Wann Jr. (2016). "A cervical vertebra of Arambourgiania philadelphiae (Pterosauria, Azhdarchidae) from the Late Campanian micaceous facies of the Coon Creek Formation in McNairy County, Tennessee, USA" Bull. Alabama Mus. Nat. Hist. 33:94–103
- PMID 29534059.
- S2CID 132649124.
- .
- .
- S2CID 135043714.
- PMID 21085624.
- S2CID 249332375.
- S2CID 84617119.
References
- Arambourg, C. (1959). "Titanopteryx philadelphiae nov. gen., nov. sp. Ptérosaurien géant." Notes Mém. Moyen-Orient, 7: 229–234.
- Frey, E. & Martill, D.M. (1996). "A reappraisal of Arambourgiania (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea): One of the world's largest flying animals." N.Jb.Geol.Paläont.Abh., 199(2): 221–247.
- Martill, D.M., E. Frey, R.M. Sadaqah & H.N. Khoury (1998). "Discovery of the holotype of the giant pterosaur Titanopteryx philadelphiae Arambourg 1959, and the status of Arambourgiania and Quetzalcoatlus." Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abh. 207(1): 57–76.
- Nessov, L.A., and Yarkov, A.A. (1989). "New Cretaceous-Paleogene birds of the USSR and some remarks on the origin and evolution of the class Aves". Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta AN SSSR, 197: 78–97. [In Russian]
- Steel, L., D.M. Martill., J. Kirk, A. Anders, R.F. Loveridge, E. Frey, and J.G. Martin (1997). "Arambourgiania philadelphiae: giant wings in small halls." The Geological Curator, 6(8): 305–313.