Lonchodraco
Lonchodraco | |
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Lectotype of L. giganteus
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Order: | †Pterosauria |
Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
Family: | † Lonchodraconidae
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Genus: | †Lonchodraco Rodrigues & Kellner, 2013 |
Type species | |
†Pterodactylus giganteus Bowerbank, 1846
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Species | |
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Synonyms | |
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Lonchodraco is a
Discovery and naming
In 1846,
At the time, the British Association Code of 1843 allowed to change names if they were inappropriate. In 1850, Richard Owen, considering the species not to have been particularly large, and renamed it into Pterodactylus conirostris; the specific name meaning "cone-snouted", which was based on the conical snout of specimen NHMUK PV 39412.[5] However, after insistent objections by Bowerbank, Owen retracted this name in 1851 when he described the finds in more detail.[6]
In 1914
Rodrigues and Kellner considered NHMUK PV 39412 to be the
Also in 1869, Seeley informally named "Ptenodactylus microdon".[9] In 1870, he formally named it Ornithocheirus microdon, "small tooth",[10] Hooley (1914) transferred this species to Lonchodectes to form the new combination Lonchodectes microdon.[7] Its holotype, CAMSM B54486, has its provenance in the Cambridge Greensand and consists of the front of a snout. The type specimen of Ornithocheirus oweni Seeley 1870, CAMSM B 54439, was synonymized with microdon by Unwin (2001),[11] and Rodrigues & Kellner (2013) agreed with this synonymy.[1]
In 1869,
Description
Rodrigues & Kellner treated Lonchodraco as a
Bowerbank estimated P. giganteus had a wingspan of about eight to nine feet. Rodrigues & Kellner established two autapomorphies of Lonchodraco giganteus. Below the front of the lower jaws a short blade-like crest is present. There is a density of about six tooth sockets per three centimetres of jaw edge. There is a unique combination of traits: the snout bears a crest; the front part of the snout is rounded; the front part of the lower jaws is rounded; the margins of the front tooth sockets diverge.[1]
Classification
In 2013, Brazilian paleontologists Rodrigues & Kellner assigned Lonchodraco to a family called
A topology recovered by Longrich and colleagues in 2018 placed Lonchodraco within the family Lonchodectidae as the sister taxon of Lonchodectes, with the family being placed within the larger group Ornithocheiromorpha.[13] However, in several recent studies, including Pêgas et al. (2019) and Holgado & Pêgas (2020), the term Lonchodraconidae is used, and Lonchodraco is recovered within this group, sister taxon to Ikrandraco.[14][15]
Topology 1: Longrich et al. (2018). |
Topology 2: Pêgas et al. (2019).
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See also
References
- ^ PMID 23794925.
- S2CID 129389179.
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- S2CID 131742710.
- ^ Dixon, F., 1850 The geology and fossils of the Tertiary and Cretaceous Formations of Sussex. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London, 423 pp
- ^ Owen, R., 1851, A monograph on the fossil Reptilia of the Cretaceous formations. Palaeontographical Society, London, 118 pp
- ^ .
- ^ Wellnhofer, P., 1978, Pterosauria. Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie, Teil 19. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart and New York, 82 pp
- ^ a b Seeley, H.G., 1869, Index to the fossil remains of Aves, Ornithosauria, and Reptilia, from the Secondary System of Strata arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge. Deighton, Bell and Co., Cambridge, xxiii + 143 pp
- ^ a b Seeley, H.G., 1870, The Ornithosauria: an elementary study of the bones of pterodactyls, made from fossil remains found in the Cambridge Upper Greensand, and arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge. Deighton, Bell, and Co., Cambridge, xii + 135 pp
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