Anurognathus

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Anurognathus
Anurognathus ammoni hunts the butterfly-like lacewing Kalligramma haeckeli

Anurognathus ammoni hunts the butterfly-like lacewing Kalligramma haeckeli

Temporal occurrence
Upper Jurassic
approx. 150 million years
Locations
Systematics
Diapsida
Archosauria
Ornithodira
Flugsaurier (Pterosauria)
Anurognathidae
Anurognathus
Scientific name
Anurognathus
Doederlein , 1923
Art

Anurognathus ("tailless jaw") is a genus of pterosaurs from the Upper Jurassic of southern Germany. Thegenus knownonly from two fossil finds with its type A. ammoni ( Döderlein , 1923) is one of the smallest pterosaurs discovered to date.

The finds

The holotype

For a long time Anurognathus was only known from a single find, a fragmentarily preserved, disarticulated (disintegrated) negative impression in the Solnhofen limestone from Eichstätt in Bavaria (early sub- tithonium about 150 million years ago). This piece ( inventory number 1922-i-42) - the holotype - is kept in the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Munich.

The second find

In 2002 SC Bennett described a second, significantly smaller but completely and almost articulated specimen, also from the Solnhofen limestone. Imprints of the skin and remnants of muscles can be seen here. The specimen, about 55 percent of the size of the first find, lies on its stomach with its wings folded along the trunk. On the basis of this find, some misinterpretations of the holotype could be corrected, the flight finger is not as extremely elongated as assumed, and the short tail is not comparable to the pygostyle of birds.

description

Anurognathus was a small, gracefully built pterosaur with a skull length of 3 centimeters and a body length of 5 centimeters. Its wingspan was about 37 centimeters. The skull with large windows was remarkably short and high with a triangular nasal opening (naris) and a large eye socket (orbit) with a scleral ring (before the second discovery, a pre-orbital opening that had been enlarged at the expense of the orbit was reconstructed). The few, pin-shaped teeth (8 in the upper jaw, 7 in the lower jaw, each per half of the jaw) were small, pointed and hardly curved. These teeth and the wide mouth suggest that Anurognathus was an insect eater . He must have been a skilled aviator who caught his prey in flight.

The regressed tail is unusual. However, Anurognathus is not a short-tailed pterosaur because it deviates from the blueprint of this group in other skeletal features.

literature

Main source:

  • Peter Wellnhofer : The great encyclopedia of the pterosaurs. Illustrated natural history of the flying dinosaurs. 100 species. Mosaik-Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-576-10174-8 .

Further reading:

  • Ludwig Döderlein : Anurognathus ammoni a new pterosaur. In: Meeting reports of the mathematical-physical class of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. 1923, ISSN  0340-7586 , pp. 117-164.
  • Ludwig Döderlein: About Anurognathus ammoni Döderlein. In: Meeting reports of the mathematical and natural science department of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich. 1929, ZDB -ID 578558-3 , pp. 47-63.

Web links

Commons : Anurognathus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b " Pterosaurs - The Wellnhofer pterosaur meeting" . Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology. Munich, 2007.
  2. ^ A b S. Christopher Bennett: A second specimen of Anurognathus from the Solnhofen Limestone of southern Germany. In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Vol. 22, Supplement to No. 3 = Abstracts of Papers, Sixty-second annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma, Norman Oklahoma, October 9-12 2002 , 2002, ISSN  0272-4634 , p. 36A, abstract (PDF; 1.54 MB) .
  3. ↑ a b Peter Wellnhofer: Pterosaurs. Pterosauria. (= The New Brehm Library. Vol. 534). 2nd, unchanged edition, reprint of the 1st edition Wittenberg Lutherstadt, Ziemsen, 1980. 2nd edition (unchanged reprint of the 1st edition from 1980). Westarp-Wissenschaften-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Hohenwarsleben 2004, ISBN 3-89432-853-3 .