''Aerodraco'' (meaning "air dragon") is a genus of

anhanguerid Anhangueridae (alternatively called Ornithocheiridae, meaning "bird hands") is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. These pterosaurs were among the last to possess teeth. Members that belong to this group lived from the ...

pterosaur Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earli ...

from the

Albian The Albian is both an age (geology), age of the geologic timescale and a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early/Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch/s ...

–

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy's (ICS) geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age (geology), age of the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or the lowest stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Upper Cretace ...

-age

Cambridge Greensand The Cambridge Greensand is a geological unit in England whose strata are earliest Cenomanian in age. It lies above the erosive contact between the Gault Formation and the Chalk Group in the vicinity of Cambridgeshire, and technically forms the l ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It contains only one species, ''Aerodraco sedgwickii''. It was originally assigned to the genus ''

Pterodactylus ''Pterodactylus'' (from ) is a genus of extinct pterosaurs. It is thought to contain only a single species, ''Pterodactylus antiquus'', which was the first pterosaur to be named and identified as a flying reptile and one of the first prehis ...

''.

Discovery and naming

In 1859, Sir

Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist and paleontology, palaeontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkabl ...

named pterosaur material from the

of England as ''

sedgwickii''.R. Owen. 1859. Supplement (No. I) to the Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Cretaceous Formations. Palaeontographical Society Monographs 1–19 At the time, ''Pterodactylus'' was a

wastebasket taxon Wastebasket taxon (also called a wastebin taxon, dustbin taxon or catch-all taxon) is a term used by some taxonomists to refer to a taxon that has the purpose of classifying organisms that do not fit anywhere else. They are typically defined by e ...

; all sorts of unrelated pterosaurs were assigned to that genus. In 1870,

Harry Seeley Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 – 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist. Early life Seeley was born in London on 18 February 1839, the second son of Richard Hovill Seeley, a goldsmith, and his second wife Mary Govier. When his fa ...

reassigned it to ''Ornithocheirus'', another wastebasket taxon. Its specific name honors

Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick FRS (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did ...

. It was in 1869 renamed by Seeley into a ''Ptenodactylus sedgwickii'',Seeley, H.G., 1869, ''Index to the fossil remains of Aves, Ornithosauria, and Reptilia, from the Secondary System of Strata arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge.'' Deighton, Bell and Co., Cambridge, xxiii + 143 pp and in 1870 into a ''Ornithocheirus sedgwickii'' (by then it has been placed within the now obsolete Ornithosauria).Seeley, H.G., 1870, ''The Ornithosauria: an elementary study of the bones of pterodactyls, made from fossil remains found in the Cambridge Upper Greensand, and arranged in the Woodwardian Museum of the University of Cambridge.'' Deighton, Bell, and Co., Cambridge, xii + 135 pp In 1874, Owen again renamed it into ''

Coloborhynchus ''Coloborhynchus'' is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur belonging to the family Anhangueridae, though it has also been recovered as a member of the Ornithocheiridae in some studies. ''Coloborhynchus'' is known from the Lower Cretaceous of Engla ...

sedgwickii''.Owen, R., 1874, ''Monograph on the fossil Reptilia of the Mesozoic Formations''. Palaeontographical Society, London, 14 pp Owen in 1859 also referred a front of the lower jaws, specimen CAMSM B54421. However, this piece is not of the same individual as the holotype and there is no proof for any connection with ''Pterodactylus sedgwickii''. It was then largely ignored in modern literature until 2013, when Rodrigues and Kellner assigned it to their new genus ''

Camposipterus ''Camposipterus'' is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of England. Fossil remains of ''Camposipterus'' dated back to the Early Cretaceous, about 112 million years ago. Discovery and naming In 1869, Harry Govier Seel ...

''. However, even they were unsure of this placement, calling it ''Camposipterus(?) sedgwickii''. Finally, in 2020, Holgado and Pêgas assigned it to its own genus, ''Aerodraco''; the genus name means "air dragon", in reference to the 1901 book ''Dragons of the Air'' by

Description

Rodrigues & Kellner established two autapomorphies of ''Camposipterus(?) sedgwickii''. The expanded section of the front snout is suddenly constricted behind the third tooth pair. The tooth sockets of the third tooth pair are much larger than those of the fourth pair. There is a unique combination of traits: the snout is deep; the midline ridge on the palate towards the front reaches a position behind the third tooth pair, which distinguishes ''Aerodraco'' from ''

''.

Classification

In 2020, Holgado & Pêgas placed ''Aerodraco'' in the subfamily Coloborhynchinae, which they placed in the family

Anhangueridae Anhangueridae (alternatively called Ornithocheiridae, meaning "bird hands") is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. These pterosaurs were among the last to possess teeth. Members that belong to this group lived from the ...

. They found it completely unrelated to ''

'', the genus ''Aerodraco'' was originally placed within during 1859. The cladogram below shows their

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q99637513 Pteranodontoidea Albian genus first appearances Cenomanian genus extinctions Cretaceous pterosaurs of Europe Cretaceous England Fossils of England Fossil taxa described in 2020