''Kepodactylus'' is an extinct
genus of
ctenochasmatid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the
Kimmeridgian-
Tithonian
In the geological timescale, the Tithonian is the latest age of the Late Jurassic Epoch and the uppermost stage of the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 152.1 ± 4 Ma and 145.0 ± 4 Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the K ...
-age
Upper Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987.
In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...
Morrison Formation
The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic, Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandsto ...
of
Colorado, United States.
In 1992, a team from the
Denver Museum of Natural History
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...
dug up a specimen of the
dinosaur ''
Stegosaurus stenops'' in
Garden Park
Garden Park is a multi-use stadium in Kitwe, Zambia. It is currently used mostly for football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normal ...
,
Colorado. In the quarry they also found smaller disarticulated bones from other animals, among which were those of a pterosaur new to science.
In 1996,
Jerald Harris
Jerald is a male, masculine given name which is a variant of Gerald, a German language, German name meaning "rule of the spear". Gerald was brought to Great Britain by the Normans, along with variants Jerold and Jerrold, and the feminine Geraldine ...
and
Kenneth Carpenter named the new genus. The
type species is ''Kepodactylus insperatus''. The genus name is derived from Greek, ''kepos'', "garden", a reference to Garden Park and ''daktylos'', "finger", referring to the typical wing finger of pterosaurs. 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 ...
means "unhoped-for" in
Latin, alluding to the fact that the researchers hoped to find a dinosaur, and did not expect a pterosaur.
The genus is based on the
holotype DMNH 21684, consisting of a
cervical vertebra,
humerus
The humerus (; ) 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 and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a roun ...
, several finger bones, and a
metatarsal. ''Kepodactylus'' was similar to ''
Mesadactylus'' but larger (wingspan around 2.5 m
.2 ft, and with additional pneumatic foramina (holes to allow air from air sacks to enter the bones) in the vertebrae and humerus. The describers concluded that the species was a member of the
Pterodactyloidea and within this group, using the phylogeny of
David Unwin, a member of a
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
that is now known as
Lophocratia.
[Harris, J.D., and Carpenter, K. (1996). A large pterodactyloid from the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic) of Garden Park, Colorado. ''Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Monatshefte'' 1996(8):473-484.] It was regarded as a potentially valid genus in the most recent review of Morrison pterosaurs.
[King, L.R., Foster, J.R., and Scheetz, R.D. (2006). New pterosaur specimens from the Morrison Formation and a summary of the Late Jurassic pterosaur record of the Rocky Mountain region. In: Foster, J.R., and Lucas, S.G. (eds.). ''Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Morrison Formation''. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 36:149-161. ISSN 1524-4156.]
Classification
The cladogram below shows a
phylogenetic analysis published by Longrich, Martill, and Andres in 2018. They recovered ''Kepodactylus'' as a basal member of the family
Ctenochasmatidae.
See also
*
List of pterosaur genera
*
Timeline of pterosaur research
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2218920
Ctenochasmatoids
Late Jurassic pterosaurs of North America
Morrison fauna
Taxa named by Kenneth Carpenter
Fossil taxa described in 1996