Novialoidea (meaning "new wings") is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

of macronychopteran pterosaurs that lived from the latest Early Jurassic to the latest Late Cretaceous (early Toarcian to late Maastrichtian ageBarrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas. ''Zitteliana'', 61-107

/ref>), their fossils having been found on all continents except Antarctica.

History and classification

Novialoidea was named by paleontologist Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of '' Campylognathoides'', ''

Quetzalcoatlus ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is a genus of pterosaur known from the Late Cretaceous period of North America (Maastrichtian stage); its members were among the largest known flying animals of all time. ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is a member of the Azhdarchidae, ...

'' and all its descendants. This name was derived from Latin ''novus'' "new", and ''ala'', "wing", in reference to the wing

synapomorphies In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to have ...

that the members of the clade possess.Kellner, A. W. A., (2003): Pterosaur phylogeny and comments on the evolutionary history of the group. pp. 105-137. — ''in'' Buffetaut, E. & Mazin, J.-M., (eds.): ''Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs''. Geological Society of London, Special Publications 217, London, 1-347 Paleontologist David Unwin in 2003 had named the group Lonchognatha in the same issue of the journal that published Novialoidea ( Geological Society of London, Special Publications 217) and defined it as '' Eudimorphodon ranzii'', ''

Rhamphorhynchus muensteri ''Rhamphorhynchus'' (, from Ancient Greek ''rhamphos'' meaning "beak" and ''rhynchus'' meaning "snout") is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs in the Jurassic period. Less specialized than contemporary, short-tailed pterodactyloid pterosaurs such ...

'', their most recent common ancestor and all its descendants (as a node-based taxon).Unwin, D. M., (2003): On the phylogeny and evolutionary history of pterosaurs. pp. 139-190. — ''in'' Buffetaut, E. & Mazin, J.-M., (eds.): ''Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs''. Geological Society of London, Special Publications 217, London, 1-347 Under Unwin's and Kellner's phylogenetic analyses (where '' Eudimorphodon'' and ''Campylognathoides'' form a family that is basal to both '' Rhamphorhynchus'' and ''Quetzalcoatlus''), and because Novialoidea was named first (in pages 105–137, while Lonchognatha was named in pages 139-190), Lonchognatha is an objective

junior synonym The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently. * In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...

of the former. However, other analyses find Lonchognatha to be valid (Andres ''et al.'', 2010),Brian Andres, James M. Clark & Xu Xing (2010) A new rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Upper Jurassic of Xinjiang, China, and the phylogenetic relationships of basal pterosaurs, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30:1, 163-187, DOI: 10.1080/02724630903409220 or synonymous with the Pterosauria (Andres, 2010).A preview that shows the cladogram without clade names
/ref> Below is a cladogram showing the phylogenetic analysis conducted by Brian Andres and colleagues in 2014. Based on the analysis, Novialoidea contains the genus '' Campylognathoides'' as well as the group Breviquartossa.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1957566 Fossil taxa described in 2003 Toarcian first appearances Maastrichtian extinctions Taxa named by Alexander Kellner