Austriadactylus
| Austriadactylus | |
|---|---|
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| Skeleton | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Clade: | † Preondactylia
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| Genus: | †Austriadactylus Dalla Vecchia et al., 2002 |
| Species: | †A. cristatus
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| Binomial name | |
| †Austriadactylus cristatus Dalla Vecchia et al., 2002
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Austriadactylus is a genus of primitive pterosaur. The fossil remains were unearthed in Late Triassic (middle Norian age,[1] about 215 million years ago)[2] rocks of Austria.
Discovery
The genus was named in 2002 by Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia e.a.. The type species is Austriadactylus cristatus. The genus name is derived from Latin Austria and Greek daktylos, "finger", in reference to the wing finger of pterosaurs. The specific epithet means "crested" in Latin, a reference to the skull crest.
The genus is based on
Description
The elongated skull has a length of 11 cm. It carried a bony crest that widened as it descended towards the snout, up to height of 2 cm. The triangular nares formed the largest skull openings. The also triangular fenestrae antorbitales are smaller than the orbits. The teeth differ in shape and the species was thus heterodont. Most teeth are small and tricuspid or three-pointed. In the front of the upper jaw five larger recurved teeth with a single point form a prey grab; six or seven such teeth are also interspersed with the smaller teeth more to the back of the mouth. There are at least seventeen and perhaps as much as 25 tricuspid teeth in the upper jaw, for a total of perhaps 74 teeth of all sizes in the skull. The number of teeth in the lower jaws cannot be determined.
The flexible tail did not have the stiffening rod-like vertebral extensions present in other basal pterosaurs. The wingspan has been estimated at about 120 cm.
Classification
Austriadactylus was in 2002 assigned by the describers to a general Pterosauria
| Eopterosauria |
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See also
References
- ^ Barrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas. Zitteliana, 61-107. [1]
- ^ Müller R.T., Ezcurra M.D., Garcia M.S., Agnolín F.L., Stocker M.R., Novas F.E., Soares M.B., Kellner A.W.A. & Nesbitt S.J. (2023). ”New reptile shows dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved among diverse precursors”. Nature 620(7974): p. 589–594. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06359-z
- PMID 26339122.
- Dalla Vecchia, Fabio Marco; Wild, Rupert; Hopf, Hagen; Reitner, Joachim (2002). "A crested rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Late Triassic of Austria" (PDF). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 22 (1): 196–199. S2CID 130013205.