Ctenochasmatidae

Ctenochasmatidae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. They are characterized by their distinctively looking teeth, which is thought to have been used for filter-feeding. Ctenochasmatids lived from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous periods.

Ctenochasmatids
Temporal range:
Late Jurassic - Early Cretaceous 152–105 Ma
Cast of a Ctenochasma elegans specimen
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: †Pterosauria
Suborder: †Pterodactyloidea
Clade: †Euctenochasmatia
Family: †Ctenochasmatidae
Nopsca, 1928
Type species
†Ctenochasma roemeri
Meyer, 1852
Subgroups

The earliest known ctenochasmatid remains date to the Late Jurassic Kimmeridgian age. Previously, a fossil jaw recovered from the Middle Jurassic Stonesfield Slate formation in the United Kingdom, was considered the oldest known. This specimen supposedly represented a member of the family Ctenochasmatidae,[1] though further examination suggested it actually belonged to a teleosaurid stem-crocodilian instead of a pterosaur.[2]

Classification

Below is cladogram following a topology by Andres, Clark, and Xu (2014). They included three subfamilies within the Ctenochasmatidae: Ctenochasmatinae, Gnathosaurinae and Moganopterinae, while also including several basal genera.[2]

 Ctenochasmatidae 
 Ctenochasmatinae 
 

Ctenochasma

 
 Pterodaustrini 
 

Pterodaustro guinazui

 
 
 

Eosipterus yangi

 
 
 

Beipiaopterus chenianus

 
 

Gegepterus changi

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kepodactylus insperatus

 
 
 

Elanodactylus prolatus

 
 
 Moganopterinae 
 

Feilongus youngi

 
 

Moganopterus zhuiana

 
 
 Gnathosaurinae 
 

Huanhepterus quingyangensis

 
 
 

Plataleorhynchus streptophorodon

 
 
 

Gnathosaurus subulatus

 
 

Gnathosaurus macrurus

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In 2018, Longrich, Martill, and Andres recovered a very similar topology to the one by Andres, Clark, and Xu (2014), but they recovered more genera within the family, as shown below.[3]

 Ctenochasmatidae 
 Ctenochasmatinae 
 

Ctenochasma

 
 Pterodaustrini 
 

Pterodaustro

 
 
 

Beipiaopterus

 
 

Gegepterus

 
 
 
 
 
 

Kepodactylus

 
 
 Moganopterinae 
 

Moganopterus

 
 

Feilongus

 
 
 
 

Ardeadactylus

 
 
 

Elanodactylus

 
 Gnathosaurinae 
 

Huanhepterus

 
 
 

Plataleorhynchus

 
 

Gnathosaurus

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

References

  1. Buffetaut, E. and Jeffrey, P. (2012). "A ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Stonesfield Slate (Bathonian, Middle Jurassic) of Oxfordshire, England." Geological Magazine, (advance online publication) doi:10.1017/S0016756811001154
  2. Andres, B.; Clark, J.; Xu, X. (2014). "The Earliest Pterodactyloid and the Origin of the Group". Current Biology. 24: 1011–6. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.030. PMID 24768054.
  3. Longrich, N.R., Martill, D.M., and Andres, B. (2018). Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. PLoS Biology, 16(3): e2001663. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2001663


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.