"Palaeornis" cliftii
Extinct species of reptile
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Palaeornis" cliftii is a pterosaur species known from parts of a single humerus (upper arm bone) found in the early Cretaceous (Valanginian) of the upper Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation, England.
| "Palaeornis" cliftii' Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | â Pterosauria |
| Suborder: | â Pterodactyloidea |
| Clade: | â Azhdarchoidea |
| Genus: | â "Palaeornis" Mantell, 1844 (preoccupied) |
| Type species | |
| â "Palaeornis" cliftii Mantell, 1844 | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Discovery and naming
"Palaeornis" cliftii was one of the earliest pterosaur discoveries in England and has a long and complicated nomenclatural history.[1] It was originally identified as a prehistoric bird by Gideon Mantell (1837, 1844), but was recognized as a pterosaur by Giebel (1847) and Owen (1846, 1859), who named it Pterodactylus ornis and P. silvestris respectively.[2][3][4] Lydekker (1888) and Hooley (1914) tentatively referred it to Ornithocheirus, although the holotype NHM UK 2353/2353a does not overlap with the holotype of the Ornithocheirus type species.[5][6] Wellnhofer (1978) referred Palaeornis clifti to Ornithocheiridae incertae sedis.[7]
Witton et al. (2009) re-examined the type specimen and realized that "P." clifti is not an ornithocheirid, referring it to Lonchodectidae based on similarities to humeri assigned to Lonchodectes by Hooley (1914).[1] Averianov (2012, 2014) referred the taxon to Azhdarchoidea indeterminate in his re-assessment of Ornithostoma.[8][9] In 2025, Thomas and McDavid recovered it as a sister taxon of Tapejaridae.[10]
The name Palaeornis had previously been used for a genus of parakeet (now considered a synonym of Psittacula) by Vigors in 1825.[11] Mantell was apparently aware of this, and in some later publications used the name "Palaeornithis" (Mantell, 1848) as a replacement.[1][12]