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Genus of ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic
Kepodactylus
is an extinct
genus
of
ctenochasmatid
pterodactyloid
pterosaur
from the
Kimmeridgian
-
Tithonian
-age
Upper Jurassic
Morrison Formation
of
Colorado
, United States.
In 1992, a team from the
Denver Museum of Natural History
dug up a specimen of the
dinosaur
Stegosaurus
stenops
in
Garden Park
,
Colorado
. In the quarry they also found smaller disarticulated bones from other animals, among which were those of a pterosaur new to science.
In 1996,
Jerald Harris
and
Kenneth Carpenter
named the new genus. The
type species
is
Kepodactylus insperatus
. The genus name is derived from Greek,
kepos
, "garden", a reference to Garden Park and
daktylos
, "finger", referring to the typical wing finger of pterosaurs. The
specific name
means "unhoped-for" in
Latin
, alluding to the fact that the researchers hoped to find a dinosaur, and did not expect a pterosaur.
The genus is based on the
holotype
DMNH 21684
, consisting of a
cervical
vertebra
,
humerus
, several finger bones, and a
metatarsal
.
Kepodactylus
was similar to
Mesadactylus
but larger (wingspan around 2.5 m [8.2 ft]), and with additional pneumatic foramina (holes to allow air from air sacks to enter the bones) in the vertebrae and humerus. The describers concluded that the species was a member of the
Pterodactyloidea
and within this group, using the phylogeny of
David Unwin
, a member of a
clade
that is now known as
Lophocratia
.
[1]
It was regarded as a potentially valid genus in the most recent review of Morrison pterosaurs.
[2]
Classification
[
edit
]
The cladogram below shows a
phylogenetic analysis
published by Longrich, Martill, and Andres in 2018. They recovered
Kepodactylus
as a basal member of the family
Ctenochasmatidae
.
[3]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Harris, J.D., and Carpenter, K. (1996). A large pterodactyloid from the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic) of Garden Park, Colorado.
Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie - Monatshefte
1996(8):473-484.
- ^
King, L.R., Foster, J.R., and Scheetz, R.D. (2006). New pterosaur specimens from the Morrison Formation and a summary of the Late Jurassic pterosaur record of the Rocky Mountain region. In: Foster, J.R., and Lucas, S.G. (eds.).
Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Morrison Formation
. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 36:149-161. ISSN 1524-4156.
- ^
Longrich, N.R.; Martill, D.M.; Andres, B. (2018).
"Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary"
.
PLOS Biology
.
16
(3): e2001663.
doi
:
10.1371/journal.pbio.2001663
.
PMC
5849296
.
PMID
29534059
.