''Skiphosoura'' (meaning "sword tail") is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus of pterodactyliform pterosaurs from the

Late Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time scale, geologic time from 161.5 ± 1.0 to 143.1 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic stratum, strata.Owen ...

Mörnsheim Formation The Mörnsheim Formation is a geologic formation in Germany, near Daiting and Mörnsheim, Bavaria. It preserves fossils dating back to the Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigra ...

of Germany. The genus contains a single species, ''S. bavarica'', known from a nearly complete skeleton including a partial skull. ''Skiphosoura'' exhibits a transitional body morphology between more basal pterosaurs and later pterodactyloids.

Discovery and naming

The ''Skiphosoura''

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 ...

specimen, LF 4157, was discovered in 2015 in sediments of the

(Schaudiberg Quarry, Dritter Kieselflinz Layer) near

Solnhofen Solnhofen is a municipality in the district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in the region of Middle Franconia in the ' of Bavaria in Germany. It is in the Altmühl valley. The local area is famous in geology and palaeontology for Solnhofen lime ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

, Germany. After its preparation, the specimen was acquired in 2020 by the

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

(USA)-based Lauer Foundation for Paleontology, where it is permanently reposited. The specimen is disarticulated but nearly complete, missing some metapodials, vertebrae, and part of the skull. Many of the bones are preserved three-dimensionally. In 2024, Hone et al. described ''Skiphosoura bavarica'' as a new genus and species of pterodactyliform pterosaurs based on these fossil remains. The generic name, ''Skiphosoura'', combines the

anglicized Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

words ''skyphos'', meaning "sword" and ''oura'', meaning "tail", referencing the short, tapered

caudal vertebrae Caudal vertebrae are the vertebrae of the tail in many vertebrates. In birds, the last few caudal vertebrae fuse into the pygostyle, and in apes, including humans, the caudal vertebrae are fused into the coccyx. In many reptiles, some of the caud ...

of the taxon. 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 ...

, ''bavarica'', references the discovery of the holotype in the German state of Bavaria. As such, the intended meaning of the full

binomial Binomial may refer to: In mathematics *Binomial (polynomial), a polynomial with two terms *Binomial coefficient, numbers appearing in the expansions of powers of binomials *Binomial QMF, a perfect-reconstruction orthogonal wavelet decomposition * ...

is "sword tail from Bavaria."

Description

''Skiphosoura'' is notably larger than closely related pterosaurs. The holotype specimen has a wingspan of but may not have been fully grown.

Classification

In their

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as Computational phylogenetics, phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organ ...

, Hone et al. (2024) recovered ''Skiphosoura'' as a non-

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 ...

member of the Pterodactyliformes. Based on these results and many morphological features, they suggest that this taxon fills an important evolutionary gap between basal pterosaurs such as rhamphorhynchines and the later ' derived' pterodactyloids. These results are displayed in the

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 ...

below:

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q131282327, from2=Q131282349 Monofenestrata Late Jurassic pterosaurs of Europe Solnhofen fauna Jurassic Germany Fossils of Germany Tithonian life Fossil taxa described in 2024 Monotypic prehistoric reptile genera