Germanodactylus
Encyclopedia
Germanodactylus is a genus
of dsungaripteroid
pterodactyloid
pterosaur
from Late Jurassic
-age rocks of Germany
, including the Solnhofen limestone
. Its specimens were long thought to pertain to Pterodactylus
. Its head crest is a distinctive feature.
Germanodactylus is described as being "raven
-sized" in weight. G. cristatus had a 0.98 wingspan
(3.2 ft) and a 13 centimeter long (5.1 in) skull, while G. rhamphastinus was somewhat larger, with a 1.08 meter wingspan (3.5 ft) and a skull 21 centimeters long (8.3 in).
, and has had varying placements in Pterosauria. Yang Zhongjian
, who named the genus, gave it its own family Germanodactylidae
. Bennett included the genus in the family Pterodactylidae, and Alexander W.A. Kellner found it to be related to Pterodactylus in his 2003 phylogenetic
analysis. David M. Unwin, on the other hand, preferred to consider it a basal
dsungaripteroid
, a group that evolved into dedicated shellfish
-eaters.
specimen BSP 1892.IV.1, from the Solnhofen limestone of Eichstätt
, Germany. It was originally described by Plieninger in 1901 as a specimen of Pterodactylus kochi, and was given its current specific name by Carl Wiman
in 1925, meaning "crested" in Latin
. Yang Zhongjian determined that it deserved its own genus in 1964. Second species G. ramphastinus (in 1858 accidentally revised to rhamphastinus by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
) was named as a distinct species long before G. cristatus, described by Johann Andreas Wagner
in 1851 as a species of the now deprecated genus Ornithocephalus
. The specific name refers to the toucan
, ramphastinos in Greek. It is based on specimen BSP AS.I.745, a skeleton from the slightly younger Mörnsheimer Limestone of Daiting
, Germany
. Peter Wellnhofer
added it to Germanodactylus in 1970, although Maisch and his coauthors have suggested that it deserves its own genus, "Daitingopterus
" David M. Unwin has also referred miscellaneous limb bones and vertebrae from the somewhat older Kimmeridge Clay
of Dorset
, England
to the genus; these finds at the time marked the earliest appearance of short-tailed pterosaurs in the fossil record.
Bennett suggested in 1996 that Germanodactylus represented adults of Pterodactylus, but this has been rejected by further studies, including his own. Bennett's 2006 reappraisal of Germanodactylus found both species to be valid and included within the genus, with G. cristatus known from four specimens including two juveniles
, and G. rhamphastinus from two specimens. The genus differs from other pterosaurs by a combination of characteristics including a sharply pointed jaw tip, 4-5 premaxilla
ry teeth and 8-12 maxilla
ry teeth per side of the upper jaw, robust maxillary teeth that, unlike in Pterodactylus, are not reduced in size farther from the tip of the jaw, a naso-antorbital fenestra
twice the length of the eye socket, and various proportional differences. G. cristatus differs from G. rhampastinus by having no teeth in the tip of the jaw and fewer teeth (~13 in each side of the upper jaw and ~12 in the lower versus 16 upper and 15 lower on each side for G. rhamphastinus).
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of dsungaripteroid
Dsungaripteroidea
Dsungaripteroidea is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea.-Classification:Listing of families and genera after Unwin 2006 unless otherwise noted.* Superfamily Dsungaripteroidea** Herbstosaurus** Kepodactylus...
pterodactyloid
Pterodactyloidea
Pterodactyloidea forms one of the two suborders of pterosaurs , and contains the most derived members of this group of flying reptiles...
pterosaur
Pterosaur
Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight...
from Late Jurassic
Late Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 161.2 ± 4.0 to 145.5 ± 4.0 million years ago , which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata. In European lithostratigraphy, the name "Malm" indicates rocks of Late Jurassic age...
-age rocks of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, including the Solnhofen limestone
Solnhofen limestone
The Solnhofen Plattenkalk is a Jurassic Konservat-Lagerstätte that preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, including highly detailed imprints of soft bodied organisms such as sea jellies...
. Its specimens were long thought to pertain to Pterodactylus
Pterodactylus
Pterodactylus is a genus of pterosaurs, whose members are popularly known as pterodactyls. It was the first to be named and identified as a flying reptile...
. Its head crest is a distinctive feature.
Description
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
-sized" in weight. G. cristatus had a 0.98 wingspan
Wingspan
The wingspan of an airplane or a bird, is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777 has a wingspan of about ; and a Wandering Albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of , the official record for a living bird.The term wingspan, more technically extent, is...
(3.2 ft) and a 13 centimeter long (5.1 in) skull, while G. rhamphastinus was somewhat larger, with a 1.08 meter wingspan (3.5 ft) and a skull 21 centimeters long (8.3 in).
Head crest
Germanodactylus is known for its head crest, which had a bony portion (a low ridge running up the midline of the skull) and a soft-tissue portion that more than doubled its height. The bony part does not go as far up the head in G. cristatus as in G. rhamphastinus. The soft-tissue portion was not known early on, being first described in 2002 by S. Christopher Bennett. It was probably composed of cornified epidermis. Germanodactylus is the first genus for which a soft-tissue component of the crest is known, but similar structures were probably widespread among pterosaurs.Classification
This genus is unspecialized compared to the pterosaurs of the CretaceousCretaceous
The Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
, and has had varying placements in Pterosauria. Yang Zhongjian
Yang Zhongjian
Yang Zhongjian , courtesy name Keqiang , also known as C.C. Young, was one of China's foremost paleontologists. He has been called the 'Father of Chinese vertebrate paleontology'...
, who named the genus, gave it its own family Germanodactylidae
Germanodactylidae
Germanodactylidae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. While its exact placement and content are controversial, recent studies have suggested it contains three genera: Germanodactylus, Normannognathus and Tendaguripterus...
. Bennett included the genus in the family Pterodactylidae, and Alexander W.A. Kellner found it to be related to Pterodactylus in his 2003 phylogenetic
Phylogenetics
In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices...
analysis. David M. Unwin, on the other hand, preferred to consider it a basal
Basal (phylogenetics)
In phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram.A basal group forms an outgroup to the rest of the clade, such as in the following example:...
dsungaripteroid
Dsungaripteroidea
Dsungaripteroidea is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea.-Classification:Listing of families and genera after Unwin 2006 unless otherwise noted.* Superfamily Dsungaripteroidea** Herbstosaurus** Kepodactylus...
, a group that evolved into dedicated shellfish
Shellfish
Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...
-eaters.
History
G. cristatus is based onHolotype
A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...
specimen BSP 1892.IV.1, from the Solnhofen limestone of Eichstätt
Eichstätt
Eichstätt is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the District of Eichstätt. It is located along the Altmühl River, at , and had a population of 13,078 in 2002. It is home to the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, the lone Catholic university in Germany. The...
, Germany. It was originally described by Plieninger in 1901 as a specimen of Pterodactylus kochi, and was given its current specific name by Carl Wiman
Carl Wiman
Carl Wiman was a Swedish paleontologist and the first professor of paleontology at Uppsala University. He published on a variety of topics, including extinct penguins, and dinosaur fossils sent to Sweden from China and the San Juan Basin of New Mexico...
in 1925, meaning "crested" in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. Yang Zhongjian determined that it deserved its own genus in 1964. Second species G. ramphastinus (in 1858 accidentally revised to rhamphastinus by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer
Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer was a German palaeontologist.He was born at Frankfurt am Main.In 1832 von Meyer issued a work entitled Palaeologica, and in course of time he published a series of memoirs on various fossil organic remains: molluscs, crustaceans, fishes and higher vertebrata,...
) was named as a distinct species long before G. cristatus, described by Johann Andreas Wagner
Johann Andreas Wagner
Johann Andreas Wagner was a German palaeontologist, zoologist and archaeologist.Wagner was a professor at the University of Munich, and curator of the Zoologische Staatssammlung ....
in 1851 as a species of the now deprecated genus Ornithocephalus
Ornithocephalus
The name Ornithocephalus may refer either to* a genus of orchid or* an obsolete name once applied to pterosaur specimens now classified as Pterodactylus and Rhamphorhynchus....
. The specific name refers to the toucan
Toucan
Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, often colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...
, ramphastinos in Greek. It is based on specimen BSP AS.I.745, a skeleton from the slightly younger Mörnsheimer Limestone of Daiting
Daiting
Daiting is a municipality in the district of Donau-Ries in Bavaria in Germany.-Archaeopteryx - Daiting Specimen:An eighth, fragmentary specimen of Archaeopteryx was discovered in the late 1980s in the somewhat younger sediments at Daiting...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Peter Wellnhofer
Peter Wellnhofer
Peter Wellnhofer is a German paleontologist at the "Bayerische Staatssammlung fur Paläontologie" in Munich. He is best known for his work on the various fossil specimens of Archaeopteryx or "Urvogel", the first known bird...
added it to Germanodactylus in 1970, although Maisch and his coauthors have suggested that it deserves its own genus, "Daitingopterus
Daitingopterus
"Daitingopterus" is a nomen nudum, meaning that it is not a valid scientific name. Informally coined in 2004, it is intended as a replacement name for "Germanodactylus" rhamphastinus, named by Wagner in 1851 as a species of Ornithocephalus...
" David M. Unwin has also referred miscellaneous limb bones and vertebrae from the somewhat older Kimmeridge Clay
Kimmeridge Clay
The Kimmeridge Clay Formation is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Jurassic age. It occurs in Europe.Kimmeridge Clay is arguably the most economically important unit of rocks in the whole of Europe, being the major source rock for oil fields in the North Sea hydrocarbon...
of Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
to the genus; these finds at the time marked the earliest appearance of short-tailed pterosaurs in the fossil record.
Bennett suggested in 1996 that Germanodactylus represented adults of Pterodactylus, but this has been rejected by further studies, including his own. Bennett's 2006 reappraisal of Germanodactylus found both species to be valid and included within the genus, with G. cristatus known from four specimens including two juveniles
Juvenile (organism)
A juvenile is an individual organism that has not yet reached its adult form, sexual maturity or size. Juveniles sometimes look very different from the adult form, particularly in terms of their colour...
, and G. rhamphastinus from two specimens. The genus differs from other pterosaurs by a combination of characteristics including a sharply pointed jaw tip, 4-5 premaxilla
Premaxilla
The incisive bone is the portion of the maxilla adjacent to the incisors. It is a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the jaws of many animals, usually bearing teeth, but not always. They are connected to the maxilla and the nasals....
ry teeth and 8-12 maxilla
Maxilla
The maxilla is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper jaw. This is similar to the mandible , which is also a fusion of two halves at the mental symphysis. Sometimes The maxilla (plural: maxillae) is a fusion of two bones along the palatal fissure that form the upper...
ry teeth per side of the upper jaw, robust maxillary teeth that, unlike in Pterodactylus, are not reduced in size farther from the tip of the jaw, a naso-antorbital fenestra
Antorbital fenestra
An antorbital fenestra is an opening in the skull, in front of the eye sockets. This skull formation first appeared in archosaurs during the Triassic Period. Living birds today possess antorbital fenestrae, but the feature has been lost in modern crocodilians...
twice the length of the eye socket, and various proportional differences. G. cristatus differs from G. rhampastinus by having no teeth in the tip of the jaw and fewer teeth (~13 in each side of the upper jaw and ~12 in the lower versus 16 upper and 15 lower on each side for G. rhamphastinus).
External links
- Restoration of G. rhamphastinus at The Grave Yard