''Austriadactylus'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of primitive

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 ...

. The fossil remains were unearthed in

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...

(middle

Norian The Norian is a division of the Triassic geological period, Period. It has the rank of an age (geology), age (geochronology) or stage (stratigraphy), stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227.3 to Mya (unit), million years ago. It was prec ...

age,Barrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas. ''Zitteliana'', 61-107

/ref> about 215 million years ago)Müller R.T., Ezcurra M.D., Garcia M.S., Agnolín F.L., Stocker M.R., Novas F.E., Soares M.B., Kellner A.W.A. & Nesbitt S.J. (2023). "New reptile shows dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved among diverse precursors". Nature 620(7974): p. 589–594. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06359-z rocks of

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Discovery

Austriadactylus cristatus skull and lower jaw from Carnic Prealps

The genus was named in 2002 by Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia e.a.. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

is ''Austriadactylus cristatus''. The genus name is derived from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''Austria'' and Greek ''daktylos'', "finger", in reference to the wing finger of pterosaurs. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

means "crested" in Latin, a reference to the skull crest. The genus is based on

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

SMNS 56342, a crushed partial skeleton on a slab, found in an abandoned mine near Ankerschlag in

Tyrol Tyrol ( ; historically the Tyrole; ; ) is a historical region in the Alps of Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, f ...

, in the

Seefelder Beds. The counterslab has been lost and with it some of the bone. The fossil consists of the skull, lower jaws, some

vertebra Each vertebra (: vertebrae) is an irregular bone with a complex structure composed of bone and some hyaline cartilage, that make up the vertebral column or spine, of vertebrates. The proportions of the vertebrae differ according to their spina ...

e, parts of the limbs and pelvic girdle, and the first part of the tail.

Description

The elongated skull has a length of 11 cm. It carried a bony crest that widened as it descended towards the snout, up to height of 2 cm. The triangular nares formed the largest skull openings. The also triangular ''fenestrae antorbitales'' are smaller than the orbits. The teeth differ in shape and the species was thus heterodont. Most teeth are small and tricuspid or three-pointed. In the front of the upper jaw five larger recurved teeth with a single point form a prey grab; six or seven such teeth are also interspersed with the smaller teeth more to the back of the mouth. There are at least seventeen and perhaps as much as 25 tricuspid teeth in the upper jaw, for a total of perhaps 74 teeth of all sizes in the skull. The number of teeth in the lower jaws cannot be determined. The flexible tail did not have the stiffening rod-like vertebral extensions present in other basal pterosaurs. The wingspan has been estimated at 120 cm.

Classification

''Austriadactylus'' was in 2002 assigned by the describers to a general Pterosauria ''

incertae sedis or is a term used for a taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Alternatively, such groups are frequently referred to as "enigmatic taxa". In the system of open nomenclature, uncertainty ...

'', but some later analyses showed it to have been related to ''

Campylognathoides ''Campylognathoides'' is an extinct genus of pterosaur discovered in the Württemberg Lias deposits (dated to the early Toarcian ageBarrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). "Pterosaur distribution in time and space: ...

'' and ''

Eudimorphodon ''Eudimorphodon'' is an extinct genus of pterosaur that was discovered in 1973 by Mario Pandolfi in the town of Cene, Lombardy, Cene, Italy and described the same year by Rocco Zambelli. The nearly complete skeleton was retrieved from shale depos ...

'' in the Campylognathoididae. It has even been suggested it was a junior synonym of ''Eudimorphodon'', though perhaps a distinct species in that genus. The following phylogenetic analysis follows the topology of Upchurch ''et al.'' (2015).

References

External links

The Pterosaur Database (pdf)
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q19298186, from2=Q2789205 Pterosaurs Late Triassic pterosaurs of Europe Fossil taxa described in 2002 Fossils of Austria

Discovery

Description

Classification

See also

References

External links