Scleromochlus
| Scleromochlus | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Graphic representation of scleromochlus |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Triassic | ||||||||||||
| 228 to 203.6 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
| Scleromochlidae | ||||||||||||
| Huene , 1914 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Scleromochlus | ||||||||||||
| Woodward , 1907 | ||||||||||||
Scleromochlus is a genus of small archosaurs of the Upper Triassic ( Carnian - Norium ) from Scotland. The only species is Scleromochlus taylori .
Its fossil remains were first found in 1907 in sandstone formations near Lossiemouth in Scotland . There are only impressions of bone fragments and so few morphological details have survived. Seven copies are now known.
Scleromochlus was only nine inches long and gracefully built with long hind legs and short front legs. The skull was relatively large with wide windows .
Nevertheless, Friedrich von Huene assumed as early as 1914 that Scleromochlus was capable of gliding and possessed flight skins . Scleromochlus may have lived in trees and covered greater distances in gliding flight. It lived at the same time as the first pterosaurs and could have shared ancestors with them.
In the 1980s and 1990s this assumption was further supported by research by Padian, Paul Sereno, and Michael Benton . The systematic position in the archosaur system has still not been conclusively clarified.
literature
- Arthur Smith Woodward : On a New Dinosaurian Reptile (Scleromochlus Taylori, gen. Et sp. Nov.) From the Trias of Lossiemouth, Elgin. In: Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. Vol. 63, Part 2, No. 250, Article 10, 1907, pp. 140-144, doi : 10.1144 / GSL.JGS.1907.063.01-04.12 , digitized .
- Peter Wellnhofer : The illustrated encyclopedia of pterosaurs. Crescent Books, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-517-03701-7 .
- Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates. Thieme, Stuttgart et al. 1993, ISBN 3-13-774401-6 .
- Michael J. Benton : Scleromochlus taylori and the origin of the pterosaurs. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London. Series B: Biological Sciences. Vol. 354, No. 1388, 1999, pp. 1423-1446, doi : 10.1098 / rstb.1999.0489 , PDF; 577 kB .
- David M. Unwin: Pterosaurs. From deep time. Pi Press, New York NY 2006, ISBN 0-13-146308-X .
Individual evidence
- ^ Benton, 1999
