Iberodactylus
Iberodactylus | |
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The holotype snout | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Order: | †Pterosauria |
Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
Clade: | † Ornithocheiriformes
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Clade: | †Ornithocheirae |
Clade: | †Anhangueria |
Clade: | †Hamipteridae |
Genus: | †Iberodactylus Holgado et al., 2019 |
Type species | |
†Iberodactylus andreui Holgado et al., 2019
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Iberodactylus is a
History of discovery and naming
In the late 1980s, amateur paleontologist Javier Andreu discovered a pterosaur skull at the Los Quiñones site, 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) west of
In 2019, the type species, Iberodactylus andreui, was named and described by Borja Holgado, Rodrigo Vargas Pêgas, José Ignacio Canudo, Josep Fortuny, Taissa Rodrigues, Julio Company and
The holotype, MPZ-2014/1, was found in a chalkstone layer of the Blesa Formation dating from the Barremian. It consists of a partial front snout with crest, containing a number of broken teeth and empty tooth sockets. The fossil is part of the collection of the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de la Universidad de Zaragoza.[2]
Description
Size and distinguishing traits
The
The describing authors indicated two distinguishing traits. They are
Skull
The fossil skull fragment has a preserved length of 198 millimeters (7.8 in) and a height of 128 millimeters (5.0 in). The snout or rostrum is somewhat expanded at the front. The palate is keeled on the midline and turns upwards at the front.[2]
The snout bears a crest of which the base alone has been preserved. The front edge of the crest is positioned above the fifth tooth socket. The base of the crest is wide in side view, despite lacking its rear edge. The fracture in the fossil reveals that the bone wall is about 1.5 millimeters (0.059 in) thick, and the crest is filled with small bone struts called trabeculae. The crest is triangular in cross-section. Its sides are covered by vertical ridges and troughs. These run parallel to the forward curvature of the crest. Because the crest, a plausible display structure, is relatively robust, the authors assumed that the specimen represents a male individual. The fossil resembles Hamipterus but in that latter genus, the snout is lower and the front edge of the crest straighter. On the base of the edge small holes are visible. Their edges seem to be too sharp for them to be natural foramina in the bone wall. It was suggested that they could be tunnels made by bone-eating larvae of beetles.[2] In 2014, it was assumed that they represented exit holes of a salt gland, unique for the entire Pterosauria.[1]
The maxilla bears at least eight conical teeth. The teeth have an elliptical cross-section. They are positioned more laterally on the jaw. The teeth increase in size until the third tooth, which with a width of 2 centimeters (0.79 in) is twice as wide as the first tooth. The fourth tooth becomes abruptly smaller and is about as large as the first. The fifth tooth is larger and the sixth is about as wide as the third. The seventh and eight teeth again abruptly decline in size, being somewhat smaller than the first one.[2]
Phylogeny
Iberodactylus was, within the
Anhangueria |
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References
- ^ a b Ulloa-Rivas, J.A. & Canudo, J.I. 2014. "New cranial remains of Ornithocheiroidea (Pterosauria) from the Barremian (Lower Cretaceous) of the Iberian Peninsula (Nuevos restos craneales de Ornithocheiroidea (Pterosauria) del Barremiense (Cretácico Inferior) de la Península Ibérica)". In: (Rodríguez, G.J.A. et alii, eds) New Insights on Ancient Life – XII Encuentro de Jóvenes Investigadores en Paleontología p 116–119
- ^