Tapejaridae

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Tapejaridae
Temporal range:
Ma
Collection of various tapejarid skulls to scale with one another. From left to right, top to bottom:

Sinopterus dongi

Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Pterosauria
Suborder: Pterodactyloidea
Clade: Tapejaromorpha
Family: Tapejaridae
Kellner, 1989
Type species
Tapejara wellnhoferi
Kellner, 1989
Genera

Tapejaridae (from a

period. Members are currently known from Brazil, England, Hungary, Morocco,[2] Spain,[3] the United States,[4] and China. The most primitive genera were found in China, indicating that the family has an Asian origin.[5]

Description

Tupandactylus imperator
(C)

Tapejarids were small to medium-sized pterosaurs with several unique, shared characteristics, mainly relating to the skull. Most tapejarids possessed a bony crest arising from the snout (formed mostly by the premaxillary bones of the upper jaw tip). In some species, this bony crest is known to have supported an even larger crest of softer, fibrous tissue that extends back along the skull. Tapejarids are also characterized by their large nasoantorbital fenestra, the main opening in the skull in front of the eyes, which spans at least half the length of the entire skull in this family. Their eye sockets were small and pear-shaped.[6] Studies of tapejarid brain cases show that they had extremely good vision, more so than in other pterosaur groups, and probably relied nearly exclusively on vision when hunting or interacting with other members of their species.[7] Tapejarids had unusually reduced shoulder girdles that would have been slung low on the torso, resulting in wings that protruded from near the belly rather than near the back, a "bottom decker" arrangement reminiscent of some planes.[7]

Biology

Tapejarids appear to have been arboreal, having more curved claws than other azhdarchoid pterosaurs and occurring more commonly in fossil sites with other arboreal flying vertebrates such as early birds. Tapejarids have long been speculated as having been frugivores or omnivores, based on their parrot-like beaks.[8] Direct evidence for plant-eating is known in a specimen of Sinopterus that preserves seeds in the abdominal cavity. The Barremian-

angiosperm.[9][10]

Assuming thalassodromines are tapejarids, this clade also included raptorial, macropredatory species adapted to hunt proportionally large prey.[11][12]

Classification

Life restorations of various members of the Tapejaridae
Hind leg of an indeterminate tapejarid, with preserved foot pads, scales, and claw sheaths

Tapejaridae was defined by Alexander Kellner in 1989 as the clade containing both Tapejara and Tupuxuara, plus all descendants of their most recent common ancestor. As originally conceived, it was composed of two subfamilies: the Tapejarinae, consisting of

Tapejara and its close relatives, and the Thalassodrominae, consisting of Thalassodromeus and Tupuxuara.[13]

Some studies, such as one by Lü and colleagues in 2008, have found that the thalassodromines are more closely related to the

Chaoyangopterinae, for this reason.[6]

The exact relationships of tapejarids to one another and to other

paraphyletic, and do not form a natural group, but instead represent sequential branches of the tree leading. In light of this discovery, several of the traditional names associated with the group have been re-defined. Martill and Naish proposed a revised definition for Tapejaridae, as all species more closely related to Tapejara than to Quetzalcoatlus.[16] Andres and colleagues did not follow this proposal, instead formally defining Tapejaridae as the clade Tapejara + Sinopterus. They also re-defined the Tapejarinae as all species closer to Tapejara than to Sinopterus, and added a new clade, Tapejarini, to include all descendants of the last common ancestor of Tapejara and Tupandactylus.[17][18]

Below are two alternate cladograms: the first, presented by Andres and colleagues in 2014, found the a grouping of tapejarids at the base of the clade, with thalassodromines more closely related to azhdarchids, chaoyangopterids, and

phylogenetic analysis.[21] In 2021 a new study focus on the most complete Tapejaridae, a skeleton Tupandactylus navigans, confirmed the 2019 topology[22]
.

References

  1. .
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  4. – via Springer Link.
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  9. ^ Meng, X. (2008). "A New Species of Sinopterus from Jehol Biota and Reconstraction of Stratigraphic Sequence of the Jiufotang Formation". Thesis, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
  10. ^ Could Tapejarid Pterosaurs be the dispersers of Klitzschophyllites angiosperm? A preliminary case of study of zoocory Flaviana J. Lima 1*, Renan A. M. Bantim1,2, Antônio A. F. Saraiva1 & Juliana M. Sayão3
  11. ^ Mark P. Witton (2013), Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-15061-1
  12. S2CID 90477315
    .
  13. ^ a b c Kellner, A.W.A.; Campos, D.A. (2007). "Short note on the ingroup relationships of the Tapejaridae (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea". Boletim do Museu Nacional. 75: 1–14.
  14. ^ Lü, J., Unwin, D.M., Xu, L., and Zhang, X. (2008). "A new azhdarchoid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China and its implications for pterosaur phylogeny and evolution." Naturwissenschaften,
  15. ^ Martill, D.M., Bechly, G., and Heads, S.W. (2007). "Appendix: species list for the Crato Formation." In: Martill, D.M., Bechly, G., and Loveridge, R.F. (eds.), 2007. The Crato Fossil Beds of Brazil: Window into an Ancient World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pp. 582–607.
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