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What is and isn't a dsungaripteroid
🕑 Added 2023-07-17 20:54:06 +0000 UTC
Germanodactylus by Julio Lacerda.
In 2022 a study found evidence of dsungaripteroid pterosaurs way later than their supposed date of extinction. This study concludes that Germanodactylus-like pterosaurs continued to exist as a ghost lineage from the Late Jurassic to near the time T. rex debuted at the very least.
What’s interesting to me is that germodactylids are here described as dsungaripteroid pterosaurs.
This makes sense: both groups have been recovered as closely related in the past and share many similarities (see Witton 2013). However, a sleuth of recent phylogenetic studies seperate both groups, putting germanodactylids in the basal “Archaeopterodactyloidea” alongside Ctenochasmatoidea while dsungaripterids are lumped amidst azhdarchoids. This again isn’t without reason; a 2020 paper found Dsungaripterus to have a palate similar to that of azhdarchoids.
This thus warrant the question: are germanodactylids dsungaripteroids, and if so are they closely related to azhdarchoids or to ctenochasmatoids?
I hope this question is answerred soon. Both germanodactylids and dsungaripterids have some of the best preserved pterosaur material we currently have. Further, this does pose an interesting question: Cretaceous pterosaur faunas were dominated primarily by pteranodontians and azhdarchoids, with ctenochasmatoids being an aside. If dsungaripteroids form a group with ctenochasmatoids (or are just not closely related to azhdarchoids), they then represent another major group, but if they are azhdarchoids then this means that azhdarchoids and pteranodontians underwent a truly rapid diversification during the Early Cretaceous.
Understanding the patterns of pterosaur evolution may help in cases where the fossil reccord is more sparse, like in the Late Cretaceous. And there are quite a few fossils that could be dsungaripteroids, like Navajodactylus.
