Unwindia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Unwindia
Temporal occurrence
Lower Cretaceous (late Albian ?)
approx. 100 million years
Locations
Systematics
Flugsaurier (Pterosauria)
Short-tailed pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea)
Ctenochasmatoidea
Unwindia
Scientific name
Unwindia
Martill , 2011
Art
  • Unwindia trigonus

Unwindia is a genus of short-tailed pterosaurs (Pterodactyloidea) from the Lower Cretaceous South America. So far only a fragmentary snout with teeth is known, which comes from the Santana Formation of Brazil and can probably be dated to the late Albian . The only species is Unwindia trigonus .

features

The snout was relatively long, slender and triangular in cross-section. Unwindia differs from other pterosaurs by the smaller number of teeth in the upper jaw and intermaxillary bone (premaxillary). So these bones show a total of only seven pairs of teeth. The teeth were quite homogeneous in shape and are in contrast to the strong heterodontics that can be observed in all other pterosaurs of the Santana formation. The teeth were limited to the front area of ​​the jaws (in front of the nasoantorbital window) and were very far apart.

Systematics

Unwindia is classified within the Ctenochasmatoidea group ; however, his exact relationship within this group is unclear. Possibly this genus was most closely related to Yixianopterus and Cycnorhamphus .

Find, history of discovery and naming

The only known find ( holotype , specimen number SMNK PAL 6597) consists of the paired intermaxillary bone, the upper jaw and parts of the palate. Four teeth have been preserved. The researchers acquired the fossil from a fossil collector who discovered it in the Santana do Cariri region . It comes from the Romualdo member of the Santana formation. Today it is in the collection of the State Museum for Natural History in Karlsruhe .

The name Unwindia honors the paleontologist David Unwin , while the second part of the species name, trigonus , refers to the triangular cross-section of the snout.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e David M. Martill: A new pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Santana Formation (Cretaceous) of Brazil . In: Cretaceous Research . tape 32 , no. 2 , March 2011, p. 236-243 , doi : 10.1016 / j.cretres.2010.12.008 .