''Changchengopterus'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of non-pterodactyloid

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the Order (biology), order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cre ...

from Qinglong County in

Hebei Province Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and ...

, China. The

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

specimen,

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of seve ...

CYGB-0036, of the type and only species, ''Changchengopterus pani'', was found in the

Tiaojishan Formation The Tiaojishan Formation is a geological formation in Hebei and Liaoning, People's Republic of China, dating to the middle-late Jurassic period (Bathonian- Oxfordian stages). It is known for its exceptionally preserved fossils, including those of ...

dating from the

Callovian In the geologic timescale, the Callovian is an age and stage in the Middle Jurassic, lasting between 166.1 ± 4.0 Ma (million years ago) and 163.5 ± 4.0 Ma. It is the last stage of the Middle Jurassic, following the Bathonian and preceding the ...

and named and described by Lü Junchang in 2009. The generic name combines the ''Changcheng'', the

Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...

, with a Latinised Greek ''pteron'', "wing". The specific name honours Pan Lijun, who collected the fossil and donated it to science. The holotype, a skeleton lacking the skull, represents a young juvenile, of which the combined paired wing elements measure just seventeen centimetres.Lü, J. (2009). "A new non-pterodactyloid pterosaur from Qinglong County, Hebei Province of China." ''Acta Geologica Sinica'' (English Edition), 83(2): 189-199. . In 2011, a second specimen was described, PMOL-AP00010, acquired in 2008 by the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning. It consists of a skeleton with lower jaws, of an adult individual.Chang-Fu Zhou and Rainer R. Schoch, 2011, "New material of the non-pterodactyloid pterosaur ''Changchengopterus pani'' LÜ, 2009 from the Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of western Liaoning", ''Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen'' 260: 265-275 The wingspan of the referred specimen was in 2011 estimated at seventy centimetres. Already in 2010, some estimates for the genus had risen to . In his original description, Lü's

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

analysis concluded that ''Changchengopterus'' was a primitive pterosaur closely related to the earlier

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an pterosaur ''

Dorygnathus ''Dorygnathus'' ("spear jaw") was a genus of rhamphorhynchid pterosaur that lived in Europe during the Early Jurassic period, when shallow seas flooded much of the continent. It had a short () wingspan, and a relatively small triangular ste ...

'', and he placed it in

Rhamphorhynchidae Rhamphorhynchidae is a group of early pterosaurs named after '' Rhamphorhynchus'', that lived in the Late Jurassic. The family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinit ...

. However, a subsequent study by Wang and colleagues (2010) noted some similarities with the wukongopterids, and they tentatively placed it in that family. Andres & Myers (2013) found it to be outside Wukongopteridae and slightly more closely related to the pterodactyloids within the larger group

Monofenestrata Monofenestrata is an unranked group of pterosaurs that includes the family Wukongopteridae and the suborder Pterodactyloidea. The clade Monofenestrata was in 2009/2010 defined as the group consisting of ''Pterodactylus'' and all species sharin ...

References

{{Portalbar, Paleontology, China Late Jurassic pterosaurs of Asia Monofenestratans Fossil taxa described in 2009 Taxa named by Lü Junchang

See also

References