Brasileodactylus
Genus of anhanguerian pterosaur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brasileodactylus is an extinct genus of anhanguerian pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian age) lower Santana Formation of Chapada do Araripe, Ceará, Brazil.
| Brasileodactylus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, | |
|---|---|
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| Holotype (A-C) and assigned specimen (D-E) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
| Clade: | †Ornithocheiriformes |
| Clade: | †Ornithocheirae |
| Clade: | †Anhangueria |
| Genus: | †Brasileodactylus Kellner, 1984 |
| Type species | |
| †Brasileodactylus araripensis Kellner, 1984 | |
| Synonyms | |
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History
The genus was named by paleontologist Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in 1984. The genus name means 'pterosaur (literally, [wing] "finger") from Brazil'. The type species is Brasileodactylus araripensis. The specific name refers to the Araripe Plateau. The holotype, MN 4804-V, is the front part of a mandible.
Later remains referred to Brasileodactylus include SMNS 55414, a mandible, and MN 4797–V, the front of a snout and mandible. More complete fossils are BSP 1991 I 27, a fragmentary skeleton, and AMNH 24444, a 429 mm (16.9 in) long skull, with mandible and proximal left wing. The last two specimens have been assigned to a Brasileodactylus sp. indet. by André Jacques Veldmeijer. However, some of the more complete specimens may belong to other pterosaurs, such as Barbosania.[3]
Description
Brasileodactylus is a medium-sized pterosaur with a wingspan of approximately 4 m (13 ft) and a body mass of 10 kg (22 lb).[4] It had a long pointed snout and conical teeth that in the extreme front of the jaws were long, thin and forward pointing. Unlike some other Brazilian pterosaurs it had no crest on the snout or lower jaw but might have had one on the back of the skull.[5]
Classification
Kellner first assigned Brasileodactylus to the Ornithocheiridae. In 1991 he changed that to a more cautious Pterodactyloidea incertae sedis. In 2000 he affirmed a close affinity to the Anhangueridae. David Unwin in 2001 considered the form part of Anhanguera but later retracted. Eberhard Frey in 2003 thought it was a species of Coloborhynchus. In 2007 Unwin and David Martill suggested Ludodactylus was a junior synonym of Brasileodactylus.
Below is a cladogram showing the results of a phylogenetic analysis presented by Andres et al., 2014.[6]
Cearadactylus atrox, a coeval pterosaur named the year after Brasileodactylus, has been interpreted as a junior synonym of the latter, with all characters previously used to distinguish them actually due to misinterpreted anatomy and differences in preservation.[2]
