Scaphognathus
| Scaphognathus | ||||||||||||
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Live image of Scaphognathus crassirostris |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Jurassic ( Kimmeridgian to Tithonian ) | ||||||||||||
| 157.3 to 145 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Scaphognathus | ||||||||||||
| Wagner , 1861 |
Scaphognathus ( "When jaw") was a genus long-tailed Flugsaurier from the Jurassic , the only two fossil specimens from the Solnhofen is known. Both specimens belong to the type species S. crassirostris .
The first specimen from Solnhofen , Bavaria , was described in 1831 by Professor Georg August Goldfuß from Bonn as Pterodactylus crassirostris . It was one of the first pterosaurs to be found and the first to have a long tail, although the first specimen did not survive. Today the fossil is in the collection of the Goldfuß Museum at the University of Bonn .
The second specimen was found in Mühlheim (Mörnsheim) near Solnhofen . It is half the size of a young animal that had a long, flexible tail. Some bones in the foot were not fully ossified either. This specimen was used to identify the genus as belonging to the long-tailed Rhamphorhynchidae . The zoologist Johann Andreas Wagner (1797–1861) established the genus Scaphognathus in 1861.
Scaphognathus has a shorter, larger skull windowed skull than Rhamphorhynchus . Its teeth, 18 in the upper jaw and 10 in the lower jaw , are vertical and are not, like this one, directed forward. Since the upper jaw goes up a little at the end, the jaw ends do not touch when the mouth is closed. It is still unclear whether the pine was adapted for fishing or for hunting insects. The adult specimen must have had a wingspan of 90 centimeters, the younger one half a meter.
literature
The article text is based on, unless otherwise noted
- 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:
- August Goldfuss : Contributions to the knowledge of various reptiles of the prehistoric world. In: Nova Acta Physico-Medica Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae Naturae Curiosorum. Vol. 15, Tl. 1, 1831, ZDB -ID 210351-5 , pp. 61-128, digitized .
