Ctenochasmatidae

Ctenochasmatidae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. They are characterized by their distinctively looking teeth, which is thought to have been used for filter-feeding. Ctenochasmatids lived from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous periods.

Ctenochasmatids
Temporal range:
Late Jurassic - Early Cretaceous 152–105 Ma
Cast of a Ctenochasma elegans specimen
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Pterosauria
Suborder: Pterodactyloidea
Clade: Euctenochasmatia
Family: Ctenochasmatidae
Nopsca, 1928
Type species
Ctenochasma roemeri
Meyer, 1852
Subgroups

The earliest known ctenochasmatid remains date to the Late Jurassic Kimmeridgian age. Previously, a fossil jaw recovered from the Middle Jurassic Stonesfield Slate formation in the United Kingdom, was considered the oldest known. This specimen supposedly represented a member of the family Ctenochasmatidae,[1] though further examination suggested it actually belonged to a teleosaurid stem-crocodilian instead of a pterosaur.[2]

Classification

Below is cladogram following a topology by Andres, Clark, and Xu (2014). They included three subfamilies within the Ctenochasmatidae: Ctenochasmatinae, Gnathosaurinae and Moganopterinae, while also including several basal genera.[2]

 Ctenochasmatidae 
 Ctenochasmatinae 

Ctenochasma

 Pterodaustrini 

Pterodaustro guinazui

Eosipterus yangi

Beipiaopterus chenianus

Gegepterus changi

Kepodactylus insperatus

Elanodactylus prolatus

 Moganopterinae 

Feilongus youngi

Moganopterus zhuiana

 Gnathosaurinae 

Huanhepterus quingyangensis

Plataleorhynchus streptophorodon

Gnathosaurus subulatus

Gnathosaurus macrurus

In 2018, Longrich, Martill, and Andres recovered a very similar topology to the one by Andres, Clark, and Xu (2014), but they recovered more genera within the family, as shown below.[3]

 Ctenochasmatidae 
 Ctenochasmatinae 

Ctenochasma

 Pterodaustrini 

Pterodaustro

Beipiaopterus

Gegepterus

Kepodactylus

 Moganopterinae 

Moganopterus

Feilongus

Ardeadactylus

Elanodactylus

 Gnathosaurinae 

Huanhepterus

Plataleorhynchus

Gnathosaurus

References

  1. Buffetaut, E. and Jeffrey, P. (2012). "A ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Stonesfield Slate (Bathonian, Middle Jurassic) of Oxfordshire, England." Geological Magazine, (advance online publication) doi:10.1017/S0016756811001154
  2. Andres, B.; Clark, J.; Xu, X. (2014). "The Earliest Pterodactyloid and the Origin of the Group". Current Biology. 24: 1011–6. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.030. PMID 24768054.
  3. Longrich, N.R., Martill, D.M., and 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


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