''Unwindia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

pterodactyloid Pterodactyloidea (derived from the Greek words ''πτερόν'' (''pterón'', for usual ''ptéryx'') "wing", and ''δάκτυλος'' (''dáktylos'') "finger" meaning "winged finger", "wing-finger" or "finger-wing") is one of the two traditional ...

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the Order (biology), order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cre ...

from the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous ( chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pr ...

period (

Albian The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous Epoch/ Series. Its approximate time range is 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 100.5 ± ...

stage) of what is now modern-day

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Discovery and naming

The German

State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe The State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe (german: link=no, Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Karlsruhe), abbreviated SMNK, is one of the two state of Baden-Württemberg's natural history museums. Together with the State Museum of Natural ...

obtained a pterosaur fossil from an illegal commercial digger who had found it somewhere near

Santana do Cariri Santana do Cariri is a municipality in the state of Ceará in the Northeast region of Brazil. It is located in the immediate and intermediate region of Juazeiro do Norte, as well as in the region of influence of Juazeiro do Norte.The municipality ...

in the

Araripe Basin The Araripe Basin () is a rift basin covering about ,Neto et al., 2013, p.1 in Ceará, Piauí and Pernambuco states of northeastern Brazil. It is bounded by the Patos and Pernambuco lineaments, and is situated east of the Parnaíba Basin, southw ...

. The deposits it was recovered from likely belong to the

Santana Formation The Santana Group is a geologic group, formerly included as the middle part of the Araripe Group, in the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil. The group comprises the Crato, Ipubi and Romualdo Formations and is dated to the Aptian to Albian stag ...

of northeastern

, which was dated by Martill to the latest

stage of the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

period. The specimen is catalogued as SMNK PAL 6597, and represents a partial

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, t ...

consisting only the fused

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 mammal has ...

e and

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates 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 ...

e, some teeth and parts of the palate. The frontmost centimeter of the snout tip is missing. Due to the fragility of the specimen, the right side has undergone more preparation. In 2011, the specimen was named and described as the

type species In 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 species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

''Unwindia trigonus'' by David Martill. The generic name honours the British pterosaur expert David Unwin. The specific name is derived from the Greek ''trigonos'', "triangular", in reference to the triangular shape of the snout in cross-section.

Description

The preserved length of the snout fragment of ''Unwindia'' is . Martill estimated that the distance between the large opening in the skull side, the ''fenestra nasoantorbitalis'', and the snout point had been . In 2013,

Mark Witton Mark Paul Witton is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author, and palaeoartist best known for his research and illustrations concerning pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs. He has worked with museums and ...

estimated the total skull length at a minimum of , which would indicate a wingspan of over . Martill indicated two distinguishing traits. The first of these is an

autapomorphy In phylogenetics, an autapomorphy is a distinctive feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given taxon. That is, it is found only in one taxon, but not found in any others or outgroup taxa, not even those most closely related to t ...

, or a unique specialization: there are seven pairs of teeth present, all of them placed in front of the nasoantorbital fenestra. The second trait sets ''Unwindia'' apart from all other pterosaurs known from the Santana Formation: the teeth are

homodont In anatomy, a heterodont (from Greek, meaning 'different teeth') is an animal which possesses more than a single tooth morphology. In vertebrates, heterodont pertains to animals where teeth are differentiated into different forms. For example ...

, having the same shape. The other species have more robust teeth in the front of the jaws. Overall, the skull is elongated and flat. The teeth are long, straight, up to long, conical, and slightly transversely flattened.

Classification

Martill concluded that ''Unwindia'' was a

basal Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''. Science * Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure * Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...

ctenochasmatoid, though without a

phylogenetic analysis In biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that pro ...

. Witton in 2013 suggested that it could belong to the

Lonchodectidae Lonchodectidae or LonchodraconidaePêgas, R.V., Holgado, B., Leal, M.E.C., 2019. "''Targaryendraco wiedenrothi'' gen. nov. (Pterodactyloidea, Pteranodontoidea, Lanceodontia) and recognition of a new cosmopolitan lineage of Cretaceous toothed pter ...

. This would make ''Unwindia'' the largest known member of the Lonchodectidae, as well as the first species of that group to be identified from the Southern Hemisphere.Witton, Mark P. (2013). ''Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy'' In 2020 however, Russian paleontologist Alexander Averianov suggested that ''Unwindia'' did not belong to the Lonchodectidae.

References

{{Portal bar, Paleontology, Cretaceous, Brazil Pteranodontoids Early Cretaceous pterosaurs of South America Cretaceous Brazil Fossils of Brazil Romualdo Formation Fossil taxa described in 2011

Discovery and naming

Description

Classification

See also

References