''Austriadraco'' is a genus of

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 ...

living during the

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 ...

(

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 ...

stage, 217-213 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 in the area of present

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 ...

. Its only species—''Austriadraco dallavecchiai''—was previously attributed to ''Eudimorphodon'', and its closest relatives may have been ''

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 ...

'' or ''

Arcticodactylus ''Arcticodactylus'' is a genus of basal pterosaur living during the Late Triassic in the area of present-day Greenland. Its only species was previously attributed to ''Eudimorphodon'', and its closest relatives may have been ''Eudimorphodon'' or ...

''.

Discovery

In June 1994, near Seefeld in Austrian

Tirol 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 ...

, at a 1600 metres high mountain trail to the '' Reither Spitze'', in the vicinity of the ''Reither Joch-Alm'', Bernd Lammerer discovered a pterosaur skeleton. The remains have been secured as five stone plates, removed on several occasions. In 2003,

Peter Wellnhofer Peter Wellnhofer (born Munich, 1936) 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. ...

identified the fossil as a specimen of ''

'', a cf. ''E. ranzii''. As it was 10 to 25% shorter than the latter's holotype, Wellnhofer considered it a juvenile. The same year Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia doubted the comparability to ''E. ranzii'' and suggested that it represent a separate ''Eudimorphodon'' species. In 2009, Dalla Vecchia concluded that the specimen was neither a juvenile nor closely related to ''Eudimorphodon''. In 2015,

Alexander Kellner Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner (born September 26, 1961) is a Brazilian geologist and paleontologist who is a leading expert in the field of studying pterosaurs. His research has focused mainly on fossil reptiles from the Cretaceous Period, i ...

named the separate genus ''Austriadraco'', with 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 ...

''Austriadraco dallavecchiai''. The generic name is a combination of the

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 ...

words ''Austria'' and ''draco'', "dragon". The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours Dalla Vecchia. The Life Science Identifiers are for the genus 120B3003-6DE3-41B4-AF6B-6F242FB2A777 and for the species 6E123721-07EA-419CB755-9981CC7D9209. The

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 ...

, BSP 1994 I 51, was found in a layer of the Seefeld Formation, dating from the late

. It consists of a partial and disarticulated skeleton with skull. It contains both frontal bones, a left jugal, the lower jaws, loose teeth, vertebrae of the neck, back and tail, the shoulder girdle, both humeri, a first wing phalanx, the pelvis, a shinbone and a calf bone. The fused frontals had in 2003 been incorrectly identified as a breast bone by Wellnhofer. The bones have been partly preserved as impressions only and many are fragmented. The fossil is part of the collection of the '' Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie'' at

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Description

''Austriadraco dallavecchiai'' is a small species.

Humerus The humerus (; : humeri) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius (bone), radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extrem ...

length is about four centimetres. In 2015 Kellner indicated several distinguishing traits. Some of these are autapomorphies. The

frontal bone In the human skull, the frontal bone or sincipital bone is an unpaired bone which consists of two portions.'' Gray's Anatomy'' (1918) These are the vertically oriented squamous part, and the horizontally oriented orbital part, making up the bo ...

has a short front branch. The

jugal bone The jugal is a skull bone found in most reptiles, amphibians and birds. In mammals, the jugal is often called the malar or zygomatic bone, zygomatic. It is connected to the quadratojugal and maxilla, as well as other bones, which may vary by spe ...

has short branches to the front, in the direction of the

maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...

and the

nasal bone The nasal bones are two small oblong bones, varying in size and form in different individuals; they are placed side by side at the middle and upper part of the face and by their junction, form the bridge of the upper one third of the nose. Eac ...

, and a long narrow upwards branch running towards the

postorbital bone The ''postorbital'' is one of the bones in vertebrate skulls which forms a portion of the dermal skull roof and, sometimes, a ring about the orbit. Generally, it is located behind the postfrontal and posteriorly to the orbital fenestra. In some ...

. In the outer rear side of the lower jaw an opening is present, the mandibular fenestra. The coronoid process of the

surangular The surangular or suprangular is a jaw bone found in most land vertebrates, except mammals. Usually in the back of the jaw, on the upper edge, it is connected to all other jaw bones: dentary, angular bone, angular, splenial and articular. It is o ...

bone is low. The shoulder blade is considerably longer, 62%, than the

coracoid A coracoid is a paired bone which is part of the shoulder assembly in all vertebrates except therian mammals (marsupials and placentals). In therian mammals (including humans), a coracoid process is present as part of the scapula, but this is n ...

. Additionally, a unique combination of in themselves not unique traits is present. The coracoid is broad, with a constricted shaft. In the pelvis, the ischipubic plate, the fusion of the

pubic bone In vertebrates, the pubis or pubic bone () forms the lower and anterior part of each side of the hip bone. The pubis is the most forward-facing (ventral and anterior) of the three bones that make up the hip bone. The left and right pubic bones ar ...

with the

ischium The ischium (; : is ...

, is deep. The shinbone is relatively long, with a length of 57.7 millimetres attaining 70% of the length of the humerus and 92% of the length of the first phalanx of the (fourth) wingfinger.

Classification

According to Dalla Vecchia's analysis, ''Austriadraco'' would have a very basal position in the Pterosauria. Kellner concluded that its affinities were uncertain and placed ''Austriadraco'' in a separate, undefined, Austriadraconidae. He suggested a close relationship with ''

'' as both taxa shared the trait of a short coracoid. In 2020, a study upheld by Matthew G. Baron about early pterosaur interrelationships found ''Austriadraco'' to group with ''

Carniadactylus ''Carniadactylus'' is a genus of pterosaur which existed in Europe during the Late Triassic period (Norian stage,Barrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas. ''Zittelia ...

'', '' Raeticodactylus'', and the Austriadraconidae, which in turn were within a clade called Caviramidae.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. .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q20652509 Pterosaurs Norian life Late Triassic pterosaurs of Europe Triassic Austria Fossil taxa described in 2015 Taxa named by Alexander Kellner

Discovery

Description

Classification

See also

References