''Ningchengopterus'' 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 ...

pterodactyloid Pterodactyloidea ( ; derived from the Greek words ''πτερόν'' (''pterón'', for usual ''ptéryx'') "wing", and ''δάκτυλος'' (''dáktylos'') "finger") is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs ("wing lizards"), and contai ...

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 ...

from the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name) is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 143.1 ...

period (

Aptian The Aptian is an age (geology), age in the geologic timescale or a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early or Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), S ...

stage). Its fossil remains were found in the

Yixian Formation The Yixian Formation (; formerly Romanization of Chinese, transcribed as Yihsien Formation or Yixiang Formation) is a geological formation in Jinzhou, Liaoning, People's Republic of China, that spans the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous. I ...

of what is now

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Discovery and naming

It is known from a juvenile specimen,

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 ...

CYGB-0035, an almost complete articulated skeleton of a hatchling also showing soft parts, such as the flight membrane and pycnofibres, compressed on a plate and counterplate. It was the first small toothed pterodactyloid pterosaur specimen found in China. 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 ...

''Ningchengopterus liuae'' was named and described by

Lü Junchang Lü Junchang (; 1965 – 9 October 2018) was a Chinese palaeontologist and professor at the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. An expert on Mesozoic reptiles, he described and named dozens of dinosaur and pterosaur taxa ...

in 2009. The genus name combines a reference to the

Ningcheng Ningcheng County (Mongolian language, Mongolian: ; zh, s=宁城县) is a county of southeastern Inner Mongolia, China, bordering Liaoning province to the east. It is under the administration of Chifeng City. The daohugouthallus extinct genus of ...

district in

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

with a Latinised Greek ''pteron'', "wing". 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 Ms Liu Jingyi who collected the fossil and donated it to science.

Description

''Ningchengopterus'' was typified by the possession of about fifty teeth, twelve in each upper jaw and thirteen in each lower jaw. The teeth are curved, conical and pointed. The skull has a length of thirty-eight millimetres. The snout is elongated and tapering. The lower jaws show an incipient crest.

Classification

The specimen could not be more precisely determined than

Pterodactyloidea Pterodactyloidea ( ; derived from the Greek words ''πτερόν'' (''pterón'', for usual ''ptéryx'') "wing", and ''δάκτυλος'' (''dáktylos'') "finger") is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs ("wing lizards"), and contai ...

. It shared the relative proportions of the first and second phalanx of the flight finger with the

Ctenochasmatidae Ctenochasmatidae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. They are characterized by their distinctive teeth, which are thought to have been used for filter-feeding. Ctenochasmatids lived from the Late Jurassic to the Earl ...

, and especially '' Eosipterus'' found in the same formation, but showed no further

synapomorphies In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to ...

of that group, so that Lü abstained from placing it in that

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 ...

Palaeobiology

The teeth suggested that ''Ningchengopterus'' was a fish eater. The fully formed flight membrane was seen as confirmation of a hypothesis by Mark Unwin that pterosaurs displayed little parental care, their "babies" being able to fly shortly after hatching.

References

{{Portal bar, Paleontology, China Pterodactyloidea Early Cretaceous pterosaurs of Asia Yixian fauna Fossil taxa described in 2009 Taxa named by Lü Junchang Paleontology in Inner Mongolia Chifeng

Discovery and naming

Description

Classification

Palaeobiology

See also

References