Guidraco
| Guidraco | ||||||||||
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Guidraco , reconstruction |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||
| Aptium , Lower Cretaceous | ||||||||||
| 126.3 to 112.9 million years | ||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Guidraco | ||||||||||
| Wang , Waiter , Jiang & Cheng , 2012 | ||||||||||
Guidraco is a pterodactyloidea (Pterodactyloidea), whose fossil remains near the Chinese city of Lingyuan (in western Liaoning ) in deposits of Jiufotang Formation from the Lower Cretaceous come. The only species is Guidraco venator . The species name is made up of the Chinese "Gui", a malicious spirit in Chinese mythology , and the Latin "draco" for dragon. The epithet “venator” means hunter (Latin).
features
The holotype -Exemplar of guidraco consists of the skull, the Axis and three cervical vertebrae. Since some elements of the skull (e.g. the frontal bone and the premaxillary ) have not yet grown together, it is assumed that the animal was not yet fully grown at the time of its death. The skull length, measured from the premaxillary to the rear end of the scaly bone, is 38 cm, the bony part of the snout (rostrum) is 20.5 cm long (54% of the skull length). The premaxillary is long and in contact with the frontal bone, but does not extend to the back of the skull. The eye socket is oval, elongated dorsoventrally and differs from that of other pteranodontids, such as Annexuera , Dawndraco and Pteranodon (with the exception of Ludodactylus ) by a more rounded lower edge. The largest cranial opening is the nasoantorbital window, which is 9.5 cm long and 3 cm high and thus takes up about a quarter of the length of the skull. A groove starting just behind the anterior edge of the nasoantorbital window is likely the bone suture between the premaxillary and maxillary and shows that the premaxillary is only part of the upper edge of this skull opening, a feature of advanced pterosaurs. The sides of the skull are mainly formed by the maxillary.
The mouth is covered with numerous strong teeth. The teeth in the front part of the mouth are particularly long and directed forward. The second, third and fourth teeth in the upper jaw and the first to third in the lower jaw protruded beyond the upper and lower edge of the jaw when the jaw was closed. The sixth tooth is noticeably smaller than the fifth and seventh. A helmet-shaped crest rises on the skull, which rises almost vertically above the eyes and is rounded at the top. A premaxillary ridge is missing.
The morphology of the skull and coprolites (fossilized feces) found with the holotype specimen, which contain bones and scales, suggest that Guidraco ate fish.
Systematics
Guidraco is closely related to Ludodactylus from the Brazilian Crato Formation, a layer member of the Santana Formation . Together they form a clade that is closely related to the Istiodactylidae and Annexueridae . The following cladogram shows the possible relationships .
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literature
- Xiaolin Wang, Alexander WA Kellner, Shunxing Jiang, Xin Cheng: New toothed flying reptile from Asia: close similarities between early Cretaceous pterosaur faunas from China and Brazil. In: The natural sciences . Vol. 99, No. 4, 2012, pp. 249-257, doi : 10.1007 / s00114-012-0889-1 .