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Diagnostic characters from 227 pterosaur species were listed, separated into cranial or post-cranial elements and counted. From 21 post-cranial and 23 cranial elements, most diagnostic characters were related to phalanges (15%) and rostrum. Post-cranial characters comprise 44.23%, and cranial characters 55.77% of all characters used in pterosaur di...
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... 21 post-cranial elements, most diagnostic characters were related to phalanges (15%), followed by humeri (13%) and vertebrae (12.25%) (Figure 1), and from 23 cranial elements the most used cranial-related characters regard those of the rostrum, as follows: teeth (16.20%), mandible (12.93%) and premaxilla (10.44%) ( Figure 2). Postcranial characters comprise 44.49%, and cranial characters 55.51% of all characters used in pterosaur diagnoses. ...
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... Os pterossauros foram répteis voadores que viveram durante a Era Mesozoica, tendo surgido no final do Período Triássico, há cerca de 230 milhões de anos atrás, e extintos no final do Período Cretáceo, cerca de 66 milhões de anos atrás (Barrett, 1999, Dyke et al., 2009, Dalla Vecchia, 2013, diversificando-se em mais de 200 gêneros conhecidos, dentre os cerca de 800 gêneros de sua diversidade total estimada (Fernandes et al., 2021). Foram os primeiros vertebrados a desenvolver o voo ativo (Rayner, 1988, Wellhofer, 1991, Dalla Vecchia, 2013, tendo alcançado as maiores envergaduras de todos os organismos voadores conhecidos (Chatterjee & Templin, 2004). ...
Introdução. A Paleontologia integra conceitos de outras áreas das Ciências da Natureza para tratar da evolução e mudanças ambientais no tempo Geológico. A despeito da sua importância, o rico registro fossilífero brasileiro é raramente tratado em sala de aula. Objetivos. Este trabalho propõe o jogo de tabuleiro “Qual é o Pterossauro?” como ferramenta adicional para o ensino de Paleontologia no Ensino Básico. Metodologia. As regras e as ilustrações são autorais e inéditas, e se basearam na literatura científica. Após a exposição ao tema em formato de uma aula, o jogo foi aplicado com alunos e posteriormente avaliado por formulário. Resultados. O jogo foi considerado como boa experiência educativa por 92 crianças de duas escolas públicas da Zona Leste da Cidade de São Paulo. Conclusão. A originalidade do jogo e de todas as ilustrações que incluem representações de pterossauros brasileiros se destacam por se tratarem de material original e autoral. O jogo se demonstrou viável para apresentar conceitos de Paleontologia e pterossauros brasileiros, como ferramenta para o ensino de Geociências no Ensino Básico e valorização do patrimônio fossilífero do nosso país.
... Similarly, the commercially important phosphate deposits of the central Moroccan plateau are now also yielding abundant pterosaur remains (Pereda-Suberbiola et al. 2003;Longrich et al. 2018;Labita and Martill 2021). Combined, these two deposits have raised the number of named African Plate pterosaur taxa from one (Arambourgiania (=Titanopteryx)) in Jordan, first named by Arambourg (1954), to ∼15, with additional taxa coming from a new deposit in Angola (Epapatelo otyikokolo; Fernandes et al. 2021) and the Hjoûla and Hâqel Lagerstätten of Lebanon (Mimodactylus libanensis (Kellner et al., 2019b) and Microtuban altivolans , respectively). A number of other African Plate Cretaceous pterosaur occurrences indicate a wide distribution of sites (Algeria, Cameroon, DR Congo, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia) with mostly fragmentary remains, and have been reviewed in detail by and Smith et al. (2023a). ...
Pterosaurs, the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight, dominated Mesozoic skies from the Late Triassic to the end Cretaceous, a span of around 154 million years (∼220 mya to 66 mya). They achieved their greatest diversity in the mid-Cretaceous and had become globally distributed, even occurring at high latitudes and in a wide range of habitats. The pterosaur record is dominated by occurrences in conservation Lagerstätten in just a handful of countries and a narrow range of temporal windows, most notably China, Germany and Brazil and the Middle-Upper Jurassic and mid-Cretaceous respectively.
During the Cretaceous two major pterosaur clades evolved edentulism, such that by the end of the Cretaceous, no toothed pterosaurs survived, having become extinct by the mid-Cenomanian.
A distinctive aspect of pterosaur evolution during the mid-Cretaceous was the achievement of gigantic wingspans, perhaps in excess of 10 metres, hyper-elongation of the neck vertebrae in Azhdarchidae, and the evolution of highly elaborate cranial crests. For many years, pterosaur diversity in the terminal stage of the Late Cretaceous was regarded as low, but discoveries in the last few decades have indicated pterosaur taxic diversity remained high until the end Maastrichtian, although morphological diversity may have been low. The demise of the Pterosauria at the K/Pg boundary was most likely due to the same causes as the coeval dinosaur extinction associated with the Chicxulub bolide impact and its environmental repercussions. Faunal replacement by avians is no longer considered a significant factor in pterosaur extinction.
The pterosaur assemblage of the mid-Cretaceous Kem Kem Group of Morocco is reviewed. This analysis examines their
taxonomy, palaeoecology and palaeobiology with comments on taphonomy. New material permits the rediagnosis of the
azhdarchoids Alanqa saharica and Afrotapejara zouhrii. Several specimens are reported that do not ft within the paradigms of previously named taxa. They represent three distinct jaw morphotypes, but are not assigned to new taxa here. The
assemblage is highly diverse, including four tooth-bearing taxa assigned to Ornithocheiridae and fve named taxa and three
additional morphotypes assigned to Azhdarchoidea. The Kem Kem Group assemblage is the most diverse for any pterosaurbearing fuvial deposit and one of the most diverse of any pterosaur assemblage. The assemblage is heavily biased in terms of preservation with an as yet unexplained high abundance of jaw fragments. We highlight the importance of fragmentary
material in pterosaur studies.
Faxinalipterus minimus was originally described as a purported pterosaur from the Late Triassic (early Norian) Caturrita Formation of southern Brazil. Its holotype comprises fragmentary postcranial elements, whereas a partial maxilla was referred to the species. The assignment of Faxinalipterus minimus to Pterosauria has been questioned by some studies, but the specimen has never been accessed in detail after its original description. Here we provide a reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus after additional mechanical preparation of the holotype. Our interpretations on the identity of several bones differ from those of the original description, and we found no support favoring pterosaur affinities for the taxon. The maxilla previously referred to Faxinalipterus minimus is disassociated from this taxon and referred to a new putative pterosauromorph described here from a partial skull and fragmentary postcranial elements. Maehary bonapartei gen. et sp. nov. comes from the same fossiliferous site that yielded Faxinalipterus minimus, but the lack of overlapping bones hampers comparisons between the two taxa. Our phylogenetic analysis places Faxinalipterus minimus within Lagerpetidae and Maehary bonapartei gen. et sp. nov. as the earliest-diverging member of Pterosauromorpha. Furthermore, the peculiar morphology of the new taxon reveals a new dental morphotype for archosaurs, characterized by conical, unserrated crowns, with a pair of apicobasally oriented grooves. These two enigmatic archosaurs expand our knowledge on the Caturrita Formation fauna and reinforce the importance of its beds on the understanding of Late Triassic ecosystems.
