Peteinosaurus

''Peteinosaurus'' ( ; meaning "winged lizard") was a prehistoric genus of pterosaur. It lived in the late Triassic period in the late Norian age (about 221 to 210 million years ago), and at a wingspan of around , was one of the smallest and earliest pterosaurs, although other estimates suggest a wingspan of up to .

Discovery

Three fossils have been found near Cene, Italy. The first fossil, the holotype MCSNB 2886, is fragmentary and disarticulated. The second, the articulated paratype MCSNB 3359, lacks any diagnostic features of ''Peteinosaurus'' and thus might be a different species. This paratype has a long tail (20 cm) made more stiff by long extensions of the vertebrae; this feature is common among pterosaurs of the Triassic. The third example is MCSNB 3496, another fragmentary skeleton. All specimens are those of subadults and of none has the skull been preserved.

Like most pterosaurs, ''Peteinosaurus'' had bones that were strong but very light. ''Peteinosaurus'' is trimorphodontic, with three types of conical teeth. An insectivorous lifestyle has been attributed to ''Peteinosaurus''."Peteinosaurus." In: Cranfield, I. (ed.) (2000). ''The Illustrated Directory of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures''. London: Salamander Books, Ltd. Pp. 282-283. . The fifth toe of ''Peteinosaurus'' was long and clawless. Its joint allowed it to flex in a different plane than the other phalanges in order to control the cruropatagium, as seen preserved in the specimen of ''Sordes pilosus'' PIN 2585.3.

The genus has been described by the German paleontologist Rupert Wild in 1978. The type species is ''Peteinosaurus zambellii''. The genus name is derived from Greek ''peteinos'', "winged" and ''sauros'', "lizard", the latter being used to indicate any saurian. The specific name, ''zambellii'', honours Rocco Zambelli, the curator of the Bergamo natural history museum.

Phylogeny and classification

''Peteinosaurus'' is one of the oldest-known pterosaurs, and at a mere sixty centimetres, had a tiny wingspan when compared to some later genera, such as ''Pteranodon'' whose wingspan exceeded twenty feet. Its wings were also proportionally smaller than those of later pterosaurs, as its wing length was only twice the length of the hindlimb. All other known pterosaurs have wingspans at least three times the length of their hindlimbs. It also had single cusped teeth that lacked the specialized heterodonty present in the other Italian Triassic pterosaur genus, ''Eudimorphodon''.

All these factors converge to hint that ''Peteinosaurus'' belongs to a group that possibly represents the most basal known pterosaurs: the Dimorphodontidae, to which it was assigned in 1988 by Robert L. Carroll. The only other known member of that group is the later genus ''Dimorphodon'', which lent its name to the family including both genera. Later cladistic analyses however, have not shown a close connection between the two forms. Nevertheless, the possible basal position of ''Peteinosaurus'' has been affirmed by Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia who suggested that ''Preondactylus'', according to David Unwin the most basal pterosaur, might be a subjective junior synonym of ''Peteinosaurus''. A 2010 cladistic analysis by Brian Andres and colleagues placed ''Peteinosaurus'' in Lonchognatha which includes ''Eudimorphodon'' and ''Austriadactylus'' as more basal. The following phylogenetic analysis follows the topology of Upchurch ''et al.'' (2015).

Mark Witton, however, considers ''Peteinosaurus'' to be a true dimorphodontid. A study published in 2020 found support for a sister-taxon relationship between ''Peteinosaurus'' and Macronychoptera, which together form the clade Zambellisauria. Matthew G. Baron (2020). "Testing pterosaur ingroup relationships through broader sampling of avemetatarsalian taxa and characters and a range of phylogenetic analysis techniques". PeerJ. 8: e9604. doi:10.7717/peerj.9604. PMC 7512134. .

See also

* List of pterosaur genera
* Timeline of pterosaur research

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q132958

Pterosaurs
Late Triassic pterosaurs of Europe
Fossil taxa described in 1978