Targaryendraconia is an extinct

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

of lanceodontian

pterosaurs Pterosaurs are 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 Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosau ...

that lived from the

Early Early may refer to: Places in the United States * Early, Iowa, a city * Early, Texas, a city * Early Branch, a stream in Missouri * Early County, Georgia * Fort Early, Georgia, an early 19th century fort Music * Early B, stage name of Jamaican d ...

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

period in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Classification

Below is a

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

following a topology by Pêgas and colleagues in 2019. In their analysis, they recovered Targaryendraconia as the sister taxon of the clade

Anhangueria Ornithocheiromorpha (from Ancient Greek, meaning "bird hand form") is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. Fossil remains of this group date back from the Early to Late Cretaceous periods (Valanginian to Turonian stages) ...

, both of which are within the more inclusive group

Ornithocheirae Ornithocheiromorpha (from Ancient Greek, meaning "bird hand form") is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. Fossil remains of this group date back from the Early Cretaceous, Early to Late Cretaceous Period (geology), period ...

. Targaryendraconia is split into two families: the Targaryendraconidae, which contains ''

Aussiedraco ''Aussiedraco'' is a genus of targaryendraconian pterodactyloid pterosaur from the early Cretaceous of Australia. Description ''Aussiedraco'' is known from holotype QM F10613, a partial mandibular symphysis housed at the Queensland Museum ...

'', '' Barbosania'', and ''

Targaryendraco ''Targaryendraco'' is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous period (Valanginian stage) of Hannover, northern Germany. Fossil remains of ''Targaryendraco'' dated back about 132 million years ago. Discovery and naming In Ju ...

'', and the Cimoliopteridae, which contains ''

Aetodactylus ''Aetodactylus'' (meaning "eagle finger") is a genus of targaryendraconian pterosaur. It is known from a lower jaw discovered in Upper Cretaceous rocks of northeastern Texas, United States. Description ''Aetodactylus'' is based on SMU 76 ...

'', ''

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 ...

'', and ''

Cimoliopterus ''Cimoliopterus'' is a genus of pterosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now England and the United States. The first known specimen, consisting of the front part of a snout including part of a crest, was discovered in the Gr ...

''.Rodrigo V. Pêgas, Borja Holgado & Maria Eduarda C. Leal (2019) On ''Targaryendraco wiedenrothi'' gen. nov. (Pterodactyloidea, Pteranodontoidea, Lanceodontia) and recognition of a new cosmopolitan lineage of Cretaceous toothed pterodactyloids, Historical Biology, Contrastingly, a study by Alexander Averianov in 2025, describing the new targaryendraconian ''

Saratovia ''Saratovia'' is a genus of targaryendraconian pterosaurs that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now Russia. The genus contains a single species, ''S. glickmani'', known from a partial lower jawbone, and is named after the city of Sar ...

'', failed to recover the existence of a cimoliopterid clade. Instead, ''Cimoliopterus cuvieri'', ''Cimoliopterus dunni'', ''Saratovia'', and a grouping of ''Camposipterus'' and ''Aetodactylus'' formed an unresolved

polytomy An internal node of a phylogenetic tree is described as a polytomy or multifurcation if (i) it is in a rooted tree and is linked to three or more child subtrees or (ii) it is in an unrooted tree and is attached to four or more branches. A tree ...

with Targaryendraconidae. He argued that the distinction between the two groups of targaryendraconian were likely caused due to the incompleteness of known remains; cimoliopterids are characterized by traits of the upper jaw, and targaryendraconids by those of the lower jaw. Most of the known genera are only known from upper or lower jaw, and the complete skull of ''Barbosania'' is preserved in a manner preventing study of the interior surface of the jaw. It was also noted that several uniting characteristics of Anhangueria and Anhangueridae are not evaluable in most or all members of Targaryendraconia.

References

Pteranodontoidea Hauterivian first appearances {{pterosaur-stub