Germanodactylus
| Germanodactylus | ||||||||||||
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Germanodactylus (Upper Jurassic, Eichstätt) |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Jurassic ( Kimmeridgian ) | ||||||||||||
| 157.3 to 152.1 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Germanodactylus | ||||||||||||
| Young , 1964 |
Germanodactylus ("German finger") is a genus of short-tailed pterosaurs from the Upper Jurassic . The genus was established in 1964 by the Chinese paleontologist C. C. Young (actually Yang Zhongjian) for a fossil originally described by Carl Wiman as Pterodactylus cristatus (" Pterodactylus with a comb").
Two species have been described: Germanodactylus cristatus from the Solnhofen limestone and Germanodactylus rhamphastinus , which was found in stratigraphically younger rock in the area of the Swabian community of Daiting . In addition, vertebrae , ells , spokes , tibia and fibula as well as some phalanges of the flight bone Germanodactylus , which were found in Kimmeridge on the Jurassic Coast in south-west England are assigned . The finds in England are geologically older than the Bavarian fossils and thus the oldest remains of short-tailed pterosaurs.
G. cristatus had a wingspan of 98 centimeters, its skull was 13 centimeters long. G. rhamphastinus was taller, with a skull 21 centimeters long and a wingspan of 108 centimeters. Typical of Germanodactylus is a low bone crest in the middle of the skull, which begins above the nostrils and ends above the eyes ( G. cristatus ) or at the back of the head ( G. rhamphastinus ). The animals had strong but relatively short teeth. The tip of the snout was toothless and possibly ended in a horned beak.
literature
- Peter Wellnhofer : The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs. Crescent Books, New York 1991. ISBN 0-517-03701-7
