''Raeticodactylus'' 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 ...

of non- pterodactyloid

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 late

Norian The Norian is a division of the Triassic geological period, Period. It has the rank of an age (geology), age (geochronology) or stage (stratigraphy), stage (chronostratigraphy). It lasted from ~227.3 to Mya (unit), million years ago. It was prec ...

-early

Rhaetian The Rhaetian is the latest age (geology), age of the Triassic period (geology), Period (in geochronology) or the uppermost stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Triassic system (stratigraphy), System (in chronostratigraphy). It was preceded by the N ...

-age

Upper Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch of the Triassic Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch and followed by the Early Jurassic Epoch. T ...

lower Kössen Formation (about 213-209 million years ago)Müller R.T., Ezcurra M.D., Garcia M.S., Agnolín F.L., Stocker M.R., Novas F.E., Soares M.B., Kellner A.W.A. & Nesbitt S.J. (2023). ”New reptile shows dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved among diverse precursors”. Nature 620(7974): p. 589–594. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06359-z of the central Austroalpine of

Grisons The Grisons (; ) or Graubünden (),Names include: * ; *Romansh language, Romansh: ** ** ** ** ** **; * ; * ; * . See also list of European regions with alternative names#G, other names. more formally the Canton of the Grisons or the Canton ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. It is known from

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 ...

BNM 14524, a single disarticulated partial skeleton including an almost complete skull, found in August 2005. This genus was named and described in 2008 by its discoverer Rico Stecher; 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 ...

is ''Raeticodactylus filisurensis''. The specific name refers to Filisur. Online First

Description

''Raeticodactylus'' had a tall thin bony crest running along the midline of the front of the upper jaw, and a keel on the lower jaw; however, it does not seem to be closely related to '' Austriadactylus'', the only other crested Triassic pterosaur named by the time ''Raeticodactylus'' was described. The teeth at the front of the upper jaw, in the

premaxilla The premaxilla (or praemaxilla) is one of a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the upper jaw of many animals, usually, but not always, bearing teeth. In humans, they are fused with the maxilla. The "premaxilla" of therian mammals h ...

e, were fanglike, whereas the teeth in the upper cheeks (the

maxilla In vertebrates, the maxilla (: maxillae ) is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The two maxil ...

e) had three, four, or five cusps, similar to those of ''

Eudimorphodon ''Eudimorphodon'' is an extinct genus of pterosaur that was discovered in 1973 by Mario Pandolfi in the town of Cene, Lombardy, Cene, Italy and described the same year by Rocco Zambelli. The nearly complete skeleton was retrieved from shale depos ...

''. ''Raeticodactylus'' had a wingspan of about 135

centimeters upright=1.35, Different lengths as in respect to the electromagnetic spectrum, measured by the metre and its derived scales. The microwave is in-between 1 meter to 1 millimeter. A centimetre (International spelling) or centimeter (American ...

(53 in), and may have been a

piscivore 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 repti ...

, potentially feeding by skimming the water. However, skim-feeding has since been disproven in pterosaurs, and the related '' Caviramus'' appears to have been an omnivore.

Classification

A 2009 study by Fabio Dalla Vecchia, which analyzed the relationships within the family Campylognathoididae, found that ''Raeticodactylus'' is very closely related to '' Caviramus''. ''Caviramus'' is known only from a partial jaw, exhibiting the same type of teeth and unique cavities in the jaw bone, and both specimens come from the same time and place (the Alplihorn Member of the Swiss Kössen Formation). Dalla Vecchia concluded that the two belong to the same genus, and possibly the same species, if the subtle differences (such as size and the presence of a crest in the ''Raeticodactylus'' specimen) are not due to sex or age. A study by Brian Andres ''et al.'' in 2014 concluded that ''Raeticodactylus'' was the

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of ''Caviramus'' within the family Raeticodactylidae. The following phylogenetic analysis follows the topology of Andres ''et al.'' (2014). In 2020 however, a study upheld by Matthew G. Baron about early pterosaur interrelationships found ''Raeticodactylus'' to group with '' Carniadactylus'', ''Caviramus'', and the clade Austriadraconidae, which in turn were within a larger clade called Caviramidae.Matthew G. Baron (2020). "Testing pterosaur ingroup relationships through broader sampling of avemetatarsalian taxa and characters and a range of phylogenetic analysis techniques". PeerJ. 8: e9604. doi:10.7717/peerj.9604. PMC 7512134. .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1405497 Pterosaurs Late Triassic pterosaurs of Europe Fossil taxa described in 2008 Bergün Filisur