''Pangupterus'' (meaning

Pangu Pangu or Pan Gu (also sometimes spelled Peng Gu and P’an-ku) ( zh, t=盤古, ) is a primordial being and creation figure in Chinese mythology and in Taoism. According to legend, Pangu separated heaven and earth, and his body later became ge ...

wing) is a genus of

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 ...

Jiufotang Formation The Jiufotang Formation () is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see Jehol Biota). It is a member of the Jehol group. T ...

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 ...

. It was first described and named 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 ...

''et al''. It is known from a mostly-complete lower jaw, which bears 36 slender, evenly-spaced, conical teeth jutting out at an angle on its tip. Some teeth are smaller than the others, and appear to be replacement teeth. The teeth had a relatively high density of over , although the spaces between the teeth were wider than the diameter of the teeth themselves. Such teeth are not seen in any other toothed pterosaurs from the Jiufotang Formation with comparable material, and this specialized dental morphology is indicative of a

piscivorous A piscivore () is a carnivorous animal that primarily eats fish. Fish were the diet of early tetrapod evolution (via water-bound amphibians during the Devonian period); insectivory came next; then in time, the more terrestrially adapted rept ...

lifestyle. Although no phylogenetic analysis was conducted to determine its affinities, ''Pangupterus'' has a small process, called an odontoid, on the end of the maxilla; such a process is also seen in the istiodactylids '' Longchengpterus'' and ''

Istiodactylus ''Istiodactylus'' is a genus of pterosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago. The first fossil was discovered on the English Isle of Wight in 1887, and in 1901 became the holotype specimen of a new species ...

''. In 2022, Chang-Fu Zhou and colleagues identified ''Pangupterus'' as a member of 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 ...

without comment.

References

{{pterosaur-stub Early Cretaceous pterosaurs of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2016 Pterodactyloidea Paleontology in Liaoning Taxa named by Lü Junchang