Paleontologists have launched the invention of a model new species of quetzalcoatline azhdarchid pterosaur, Nipponopterus mifunensisfrom the Late Cretaceous of Japan.
Life restoration of a gaggle of massive azhdarchids, Quetzalcoatlus northropiforaging on a Cretaceous fern prairie. Image credit score rating: Mark Witton / Darren Naish.
Pterosaurs have been extraordinarily worthwhile flying reptiles (not dinosaurs, as they’re usually mislabeled) that lived between 210 and 65 million years prior to now.
They’ve been Earth’s first flying vertebrates, with birds and bats making their appearances quite a bit later.
Some pterosaurs, equal to the big azhdarchids, have been the largest flying animals of all time, with wingspans exceeding 9 m (30 ft) and standing heights akin to fashionable giraffes.
“Pterosaurs, the earliest vertebrate group to appreciate powered flight, have left a fossil doc spanning from the Late Triassic to the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary, showcasing a excellent morphological vary,” talked about Mifune Dinosaur Museum’s Dr. Naoki Ikegami, São Paulo Faculty’s Dr. Rodrigo Pêgas and their colleagues.
“The fragile nature of pterosaur skeletons, as a consequence of their pneumatic and thin-walled bones, renders their fossil doc considerably patchy and skewed.”
“Most well-preserved and relatively full stays are restricted to a few Lagerstätten all around the world. In distinction, most totally different pterosaur-yielding deposits often produce fragmentary specimens.”
“For instance of this, the Japanese pterosaur doc is awfully scarce, so that every keep bears a particular significance.”
“The first pterosaur specimen current in Japan derives from the Yezo Group in Hokkaido and represents an indeterminate pteranodontid, comprising a partial femur, metatarsal, pedal phalanx, and caudal vertebra.”
A sixth cervical vertebra of Nipponopterus mifunensis. Image credit score rating: Zhou et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2024.106046.
The newly-identified species was a member of Quetzalcoatlinaea subfamily of the pterosaur family Azhdarchidae.
“Azhdarchids signify a very particular pterosaur clade, significantly notorious for along with the largest flying organisms ever, such as a result of the 10-11-m- (33-36-foot) wingspan Quetzalcoatlus northropi, Arambourgiania philadelphiaeand Hatzegopteryx thambema,” the paleontologists talked about.
“The clade Azhdarchidae is most remarkably characterised by their elongated cervical vertebrae with lowered neural spines, and are found extensively all through pterosaur communities from the Turonian to the Maastrichtian age worldwide.”
“They signify most likely probably the most varied and widespread group of pterosaurs in the midst of the Late Cretaceous.”
Named Nipponopterus mifunensisthe model new species lived in what’s now Japan spherical 90 million years prior to now (Late Cretaceous epoch).
“Nipponopterus mifunensis represents the first nominal species of pterosaur from Japan,” the researchers talked about.
“This new species reveals fairly a number of quetzalcoatline choices, being strikingly very similar to the unnamed Burkhant azhdarchid from the Turonian-Coniacian of Mongolia.”
A partial sixth cervical vertebra of Nipponopterus mifunensis obtained right here from outcrops of the Mifune Group near the Amagimi dam, Mifune metropolis, Kumamoto prefecture, on the Japanese island of Kyushu.
“The specimen was found all through the middle part of the Greater Formation of the Mifune Group, in a tough lens-shaped sandstone mattress, 30 cm (12 inches) in thickness and positioned between two tuff layers,” the scientists talked about.
Their paper was printed this month inside the journal Cretaceous Evaluation.
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Xuanyu Zhou et al. Reassessment of an azhdarchid pterosaur specimen from the Mifune Group, Greater Cretaceous of Japan. Cretaceous Evaluationprinted on-line November 16, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2024.106046