Serradraco
| Serradraco Temporal range: Early Cretaceous,
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| Holotype jaw fragment in multiple views | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
| Clade: | †Ornithocheiromorpha |
| Genus: | †Serradraco Rigal et al., 2018 |
| Type species | |
| †Pterodactylus sagittirostris Owen, 1874
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| Species | |
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| Synonyms | |
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Serradraco is a genus of Early Cretaceous pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Valanginian aged Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation in England. Named by Rigal et al. in 2018 with the description of a second specimen, it contains a single species, S. sagittirostris, which was formerly considered a species of Lonchodectes, L. sagittirostris.[1] In 2020, Averianov suggested it did not belong in Lonchodectidae.[2]
The second specimen, BEXHM 2015.18, consists of a small fragment of jaw with three teeth; six complete caudal vertebrae fused together and two fragmentary caudal vertebrae in articulation; a distal left ulna; a right proximal syncarpal; portions of a minimum of three phalanges and two indeterminate elements.[1]
Discovery and naming
Lithograph
of the holotypeIn 1874,
Samuel Husband Beckles, found at St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex, as a new species of Pterodactylus: Pterodactylus sagittirostris. The specific name means "arrowhead-snouted" in Latin, referring to the mandible profile in upper view.[3] In 1888, Edwin Tulley Newton, conforming to the soon to be published pterosaur systematics by Richard Lydekker, renamed the species into Ornithocheirus sagittirostris.[4] In July 1891, the British Museum (Natural History), the present Natural History Museum
, bought the piece from the heirs of Beckles.
In 1914,
Reginald Walter Hooley renamed the species into Lonchodectes sagittirostris.[5] In 1919 however, Gustav von Arthaber again considered it an Ornithocheirus sagittirostris,[6] which was confirmed by Peter Wellnhofer in 1978.[7] In 2001, David Unwin
returned to the
Lonchodectes sagittirostris designation.[8] In 2013, Taissa Rodrigues and Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner concluded that Lonchodectes sagittirostris lacked any distinguishing traits and was therefore a nomen dubium. In 2017, Stanislas Rigal, David Martill and Steven Sweetman disagreed with this and named a separate genus Serradraco, resulting in the new combination Serradraco sagittirostris. The type species of the genus is the original Pterodactylus sagittirostris. The generic name is a combination of the Latin serra, "saw" and draco, "dragon", referring to the saw-like upper profile of the lower jaws.[1]
Classification
In 2020, a
phylogenetic analysis conducted by paleontologist Jordan Bestwick and colleagues recovered Serradraco as the sister taxon of Lonchodraco. Their cladogram is presented below.[9]
References
- ^ doi:10.1144/SP455.5.
- .
- ^ Owen, R. 1874. "A Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Mesozoic Formations. 1. Pterosauria." The Palaeontographical Society Monograph 27: 1–14
- ^ Newton, E. T., 1888, "On the Skull, Brain, and Auditory Organ of a new species of Pterosaurian (Scaphognathus purdoni), from the Upper Lias near Whitby, Yorkshire", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, v. 179, p. 503-537
- ^ Hooley, R.W. 1914. "On the Ornithosaurian genus Ornithocheirus with a review of the specimens from the Cambridge Greensand in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge", Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 8, 78: 529-557
- ^ Arthaber, G. von, 1919, "Studien über Flugsaurier auf Grund der Bearbeitung des Wiener Exemplares von Dorygnathus banthensis Theod. sp.", Denkschriften der Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien, Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, 97: 391–464
- ^ Wellnhofer, P., 1978, Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie XIX. Pterosauria, Urban & Fischer, München
- ^ Unwin, David M. 2001. "An overview of the pterosaur assemblage from the Cambridge Greensand (Cretaceous) of Eastern England". Mitteilungen as dem Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe 4: 189–222
- PMID 33116130.
