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Anurognathidae

February 15, 2024

Anurognathidae is a family of small, short-tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe, Asia, and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Five genera are known: Anurognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Germany; Jeholopterus, from the Middle to Late Jurassic of China;[1] Dendrorhynchoides, from the Middle Jurassic[2] of China; Batrachognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan; and Vesperopterylus, from the Early Cretaceous of China.[3] Bennett (2007) suggested that the holotype of Mesadactylus, BYU 2024, a synsacrum, belonged to an anurognathid, though this affinity has been questioned by other authors.[4][5] Mesadactylus is from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the United States. Indeterminate anurognathid remains have also been reported from the Middle Jurassic Bakhar Svita of Mongolia[6][7] and the Early Cretaceous of North Korea.[8]

Anurognathids
Temporal range: Middle Jurassic – Early Cretaceous, 165–122.1 Ma As early as 189 Ma if "Dimorphodon weintraubi" is an anurognathid
Life restoration of Sinomacrops bondei
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: †Pterosauria
Clade: †Caelidracones
Family: †Anurognathidae
Nopcsa, 1928
Type species
†Anurognathus ammoni
Döderlein, 1923
Subgroups

Classification edit

 
Anurognathid skeletons to scale

A family Anurognathidae was named in 1928 by Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás (as the subfamily Anurognathinae) with Anurognathus as the type genus. The family name Anurognathidae was first used by Oskar Kuhn in 1967.

The phylogeny of Anurognathidae is disputed. Both Alexander Kellner and David Unwin in 2003 defined the group as a node clade: the last common ancestor of Anurognathus and Batrachognathus and all its descendants. Some analyses, such as that of Kellner (2003), place them as the most basal group in the pterosaur tree.[9] Unwin also recovered the group as very basal, falling between Dimorphodontidae and Compylognathoididae.[9] However, anurognathids have some characteristics in common with the derived Pterodactyloidea, such as short and fused tail bones. More recent analyses, which include more fossils and taxa, support this observation and recover the group as substantially more derived than previously thought, but still basal to pterodactyloids. In 2010 an analysis by Brian Andres indicated the Anurognathidae and Pterodactyloidea were sister taxa. This conformed better to the fossil record because no early anurognathids were known at the time, and being the basalmost pterosaur clade would require a ghost lineage of over sixty million years.[10] However, the reassignment of "Dimorphodon weintraubi" to a basal position within Anurognathidae helps fill this gap and suggests this group appeared earlier than previously thought, possibly in the Early Jurassic Period.[11][12] Depending on where Anurognathidae falls within the Pterosauria, the existence of "Dimorphodon weintraubi" may have important implications for the timing of the evolution of major pterosaur clades, making further study of this specimen critical for pterosaur research.[12] In 2022, a phylogenetic analysis accompanying the description of Cascocauda recovered Anurognathidae as a sister clade to Breviquartossa.[13]

Lifestyle edit

Anurognathids are widely believed to have been nocturnal or crepuscular akin to bats. The fact that many anurognathids have large eye sockets supports the theory of operating in low-light environments. Anurognathid teeth suggest they were largely insectivorous, though some may have had more prey choices, such as Batrachognathus and Jeholopterus, which have been hypothesized to have been piscivorous.[14] At least some, such as Vesperopterylus, were arboreal, with claws suited for gripping tree branches.[3]

Feathers edit

A 2018 study of the remains of two small Jurassic-age pterosaurs from Inner Mongolia, China, named as the genus Cascocauda in 2022,[13] found that pterosaurs had a wide array of pycnofiber shapes and structures, as opposed to the homogeneous structures that had generally been assumed to cover them. Some of these had frayed ends, very similar in structure to four different feather types known from birds or other dinosaurs but almost never known from pterosaurs prior to the study, suggesting homology.[15][16] A response to this study was published in 2020, where it was suggested that the structures seen on the anurognathids were actually a result of the decomposition of aktinofibrils: a type of fibre used to strengthen and stiffen the wing.[17] However, in a response to this, the authors of the 2018 paper point to the fact that the presence of the structures extend past the patagium, and the presence of both aktinofibrils and filaments on Jeholopterus ningchengensis[18] and Sordes pilosus.[19] The various forms of filament structure present on the anurognathids in the 2018 study would also require a form of decomposition that would cause the different 'filament' forms seen. They therefore conclude that the most parsimonious interpretation of the structures is that they are filamentous proto-feathers.[20] But Liliana D’Alba points out that the description of the preserved integumentary structures on the two anurogmathid specimens is still based upon gross morphology. She also points out that Pterorhynchus was described to have feathers to support the claim that feathers had a common origin with Ornithodirans but was argued against by several authors. The only method to assure if it was homologous to feathers is to use a scanning electron microscope.[21]

Notes edit

  1. ^ Gao, K. -Q.; Shubin, N. H. (2012). "Late Jurassic salamandroid from western Liaoning, China". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 109 (15): 5767–72. Bibcode:2012PNAS..109.5767G. doi:10.1073/pnas.1009828109. PMC 3326464. PMID 22411790.
  2. ^ Lü Junchang & David W.E. Hone (2012). "A New Chinese Anurognathid Pterosaur and the Evolution of Pterosaurian Tail Lengths". Acta Geologica Sinica. 86 (6): 1317–1325. doi:10.1111/1755-6724.12002. S2CID 140741278.
  3. ^ a b Lü, J.; Meng, Q.; Wang, B.; Liu, D.; Shen, C.; Zhang, Y. (2017). "Short note on a new anurognathid pterosaur with evidence of perching behaviour from Jianchang of Liaoning Province, China". In Hone, D.W.E.; Witton, M.P.; Martill, D.M. (eds.). New Perspectives on Pterosaur Palaeobiology (PDF). Geological Society, London, Special Publications. Vol. 455. London: The Geological Society of London. pp. 95–104. doi:10.1144/SP455.16. S2CID 219196969.
  4. ^ Bennett, S. Christopher (2007). "Reassessment of Utahdactylus from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of Utah". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 27 (1): 257–260. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[257:ROUFTJ]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 4524687. S2CID 129729571.
  5. ^ Sprague, M. & McLain, M. A. (2018). Resolving the Mesadactylus Complex of Dry Mesa Quarry, Morrison Formation, Colorado. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2018, p. 220.
  6. ^ Unwin, D. M. & Bakhurina, N. N. (2000): Pterosaurs from Russia, Middle Asia and Mongolia. – In: M. J. Benton, M. A. Shishkin, D. M. Unwin & E. N. Kurochin (Eds), The age of dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia; Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), 420–433.
  7. ^ Barrett, Paul M.; Butler, Richard J.; Edwards, Nicholas P.; Milner, Andrew R. (2008). "Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas" (PDF). Zitteliana. 28: 61–107. doi:10.5282/ubm/epub.12007.
  8. ^ Gao, K.-Q.; Li, Q.-G.; Wei, M.-R.; Pak, H.; Pak, I. (2009). "Early Cretaceous birds and pterosaurs from the Sinuiju Series, and geographic extension of the Jehol Biota into the Korean Peninsula". Journal of the Paleontological Society of Korea. 25 (1): 57–61. ISSN 1225-0929.
  9. ^ a b Kellner, Alexander W. A. (2003-01-01). "Pterosaur phylogeny and comments on the evolutionary history of the group". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 217 (1): 105–137. doi:10.1144/GSL.SP.2003.217.01.10. S2CID 128892642.
  10. ^ Andres, Brian; Clark, James M.; Xing, Xu (2010). "A new rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Upper Jurassic of Xinjiang, China, and the phylogenetic relationships of basal pterosaurs". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 30 (1): 163–187. doi:10.1080/02724630903409220.
  11. ^ Vecchia, Fabio Marco Dalla (2019-07-25). "Seazzadactylus venieri gen. et sp. nov., a new pterosaur (Diapsida: Pterosauria) from the Upper Triassic (Norian) of northeastern Italy". PeerJ. 7: e7363. doi:10.7717/peerj.7363. PMC 6661147. PMID 31380153.
  12. ^ a b Wei, Xuefang; Pêgas, Rodrigo Vargas; Shen, Caizhi; Guo, Yanfang; Ma, Waisum; Sun, Deyu; Zhou, Xuanyu (2021-03-31). "Sinomacrops bondei, a new anurognathid pterosaur from the Jurassic of China and comments on the group". PeerJ. 9: e11161. doi:10.7717/peerj.11161. PMC 8019321. PMID 33850665.
  13. ^ a b Yang, Zixiao; Benton, Michael J.; Hone, David W. E.; Xu, Xing; McNamara, Maria E.; Jiang, Baoyu (2022-03-03). "Allometric analysis sheds light on the systematics and ontogeny of anurognathid pterosaurs". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 41 (5): e2028796. doi:10.1080/02724634.2021.2028796. hdl:10468/12968. S2CID 247262846.
  14. ^ Bestwick, Jordan; Unwin, David M.; Butler, Richard J.; Henderson, Donald M.; Purnell, Mark A. (November 2018). "Pterosaur dietary hypotheses: a review of ideas and approaches". Biological Reviews. 93 (4): 2021–2048. doi:10.1111/brv.12431. PMC 6849529. PMID 29877021.
  15. ^ Yang, Zixiao; Jiang, Baoyu; McNamara, Maria E.; Kearns, Stuart L.; Pittman, Michael; Kaye, Thomas G.; Orr, Patrick J.; Xu, Xing; Benton, Michael J. (January 2019). "Pterosaur integumentary structures with complex feather-like branching". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 3 (1): 24–30. doi:10.1038/s41559-018-0728-7. hdl:1983/1f7893a1-924d-4cb3-a4bf-c4b1592356e9. PMID 30568282. S2CID 56480710.
  16. ^ Briggs, Helen (2018-12-17). "Fur flies over new pterosaur fossils". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  17. ^ Unwin, David M.; Martill, David M. (December 2020). "No protofeathers on pterosaurs". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 4 (12): 1590–1591. doi:10.1038/s41559-020-01308-9. PMID 32989266. S2CID 222168569.
  18. ^ Kellner; et al. (2009). "The Soft Tissue of Jeholopterus (Pterosauria, Anurognathidae, Batrachognathinae) and the Structure of the Pterosaur Wing Membrane". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 277 (1679): 321–29. doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0846. PMC 2842671. PMID 19656798.
  19. ^ Unwin, David M.; Bakhurina, Natasha N. (September 1994). "Sordes pilosus and the nature of the pterosaur flight apparatus". Nature. 371 (6492): 62–64. Bibcode:1994Natur.371...62U. doi:10.1038/371062a0. S2CID 4314989.
  20. ^ Yang, Zixiao; Jiang, Baoyu; McNamara, Maria E.; Kearns, Stuart L.; Pittman, Michael; Kaye, Thomas G.; Orr, Patrick J.; Xu, Xing; Benton, Michael J. (December 2020). "Reply to: No protofeathers on pterosaurs". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 4 (12): 1592–1593. doi:10.1038/s41559-020-01309-8. hdl:10468/11874. PMID 32989267. S2CID 222163211.
  21. ^ D’Alba, Liliana (January 2019). "Pterosaur plumage". Nature Ecology & Evolution. 3 (1): 12–13. doi:10.1038/s41559-018-0767-0. PMID 30568284. S2CID 56480834.

February 15, 2024
anurognathidae, family, small, short, tailed, pterosaurs, that, lived, europe, asia, possibly, north, america, during, jurassic, cretaceous, periods, five, genera, known, anurognathus, from, late, jurassic, germany, jeholopterus, from, middle, late, jurassic, . Anurognathidae is a family of small short tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe Asia and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods Five genera are known Anurognathus from the Late Jurassic of Germany Jeholopterus from the Middle to Late Jurassic of China 1 Dendrorhynchoides from the Middle Jurassic 2 of China Batrachognathus from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan and Vesperopterylus from the Early Cretaceous of China 3 Bennett 2007 suggested that the holotype of Mesadactylus BYU 2024 a synsacrum belonged to an anurognathid though this affinity has been questioned by other authors 4 5 Mesadactylus is from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the United States Indeterminate anurognathid remains have also been reported from the Middle Jurassic Bakhar Svita of Mongolia 6 7 and the Early Cretaceous of North Korea 8 AnurognathidsTemporal range Middle Jurassic Early Cretaceous 165 122 1 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N As early as 189 Ma if Dimorphodon weintraubi is an anurognathidLife restoration of Sinomacrops bondeiScientific classificationDomain EukaryotaKingdom AnimaliaPhylum ChordataOrder PterosauriaClade CaelidraconesFamily AnurognathidaeNopcsa 1928Type species Anurognathus ammoniDoderlein 1923Subgroups Daohugoupterus Mesadactylus Dimorphodon weintraubi Anurognathinae Anurognathus Jeholopterus Vesperopterylus Luopterus Dendrorhynchoides Batrachognathinae Batrachognathus Cascocauda Sinomacrops Contents 1 Classification 2 Lifestyle 3 Feathers 4 NotesClassification edit nbsp Anurognathid skeletons to scaleA family Anurognathidae was named in 1928 by Franz Nopcsa von Felso Szilvas as the subfamily Anurognathinae with Anurognathus as the type genus The family name Anurognathidae was first used by Oskar Kuhn in 1967 The phylogeny of Anurognathidae is disputed Both Alexander Kellner and David Unwin in 2003 defined the group as a node clade the last common ancestor of Anurognathus and Batrachognathus and all its descendants Some analyses such as that of Kellner 2003 place them as the most basal group in the pterosaur tree 9 Unwin also recovered the group as very basal falling between Dimorphodontidae and Compylognathoididae 9 However anurognathids have some characteristics in common with the derived Pterodactyloidea such as short and fused tail bones More recent analyses which include more fossils and taxa support this observation and recover the group as substantially more derived than previously thought but still basal to pterodactyloids In 2010 an analysis by Brian Andres indicated the Anurognathidae and Pterodactyloidea were sister taxa This conformed better to the fossil record because no early anurognathids were known at the time and being the basalmost pterosaur clade would require a ghost lineage of over sixty million years 10 However the reassignment of Dimorphodon weintraubi to a basal position within Anurognathidae helps fill this gap and suggests this group appeared earlier than previously thought possibly in the Early Jurassic Period 11 12 Depending on where Anurognathidae falls within the Pterosauria the existence of Dimorphodon weintraubi may have important implications for the timing of the evolution of major pterosaur clades making further study of this specimen critical for pterosaur research 12 In 2022 a phylogenetic analysis accompanying the description of Cascocauda recovered Anurognathidae as a sister clade to Breviquartossa 13 Lifestyle editAnurognathids are widely believed to have been nocturnal or crepuscular akin to bats The fact that many anurognathids have large eye sockets supports the theory of operating in low light environments Anurognathid teeth suggest they were largely insectivorous though some may have had more prey choices such as Batrachognathus and Jeholopterus which have been hypothesized to have been piscivorous 14 At least some such as Vesperopterylus were arboreal with claws suited for gripping tree branches 3 Feathers editA 2018 study of the remains of two small Jurassic age pterosaurs from Inner Mongolia China named as the genus Cascocauda in 2022 13 found that pterosaurs had a wide array of pycnofiber shapes and structures as opposed to the homogeneous structures that had generally been assumed to cover them Some of these had frayed ends very similar in structure to four different feather types known from birds or other dinosaurs but almost never known from pterosaurs prior to the study suggesting homology 15 16 A response to this study was published in 2020 where it was suggested that the structures seen on the anurognathids were actually a result of the decomposition of aktinofibrils a type of fibre used to strengthen and stiffen the wing 17 However in a response to this the authors of the 2018 paper point to the fact that the presence of the structures extend past the patagium and the presence of both aktinofibrils and filaments on Jeholopterus ningchengensis 18 and Sordes pilosus 19 The various forms of filament structure present on the anurognathids in the 2018 study would also require a form of decomposition that would cause the different filament forms seen They therefore conclude that the most parsimonious interpretation of the structures is that they are filamentous proto feathers 20 But Liliana D Alba points out that the description of the preserved integumentary structures on the two anurogmathid specimens is still based upon gross morphology She also points out that Pterorhynchus was described to have feathers to support the claim that feathers had a common origin with Ornithodirans but was argued against by several authors The only method to assure if it was homologous to feathers is to use a scanning electron microscope 21 Notes edit Gao K Q Shubin N H 2012 Late Jurassic salamandroid from western Liaoning China Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 15 5767 72 Bibcode 2012PNAS 109 5767G doi 10 1073 pnas 1009828109 PMC 3326464 PMID 22411790 Lu Junchang amp David W E Hone 2012 A New Chinese Anurognathid Pterosaur and the Evolution of Pterosaurian Tail Lengths Acta Geologica Sinica 86 6 1317 1325 doi 10 1111 1755 6724 12002 S2CID 140741278 a b Lu J Meng Q Wang B Liu D Shen C Zhang Y 2017 Short note on a new anurognathid pterosaur with evidence of perching behaviour from Jianchang of Liaoning Province China In Hone D W E Witton M P Martill D M eds New Perspectives on Pterosaur Palaeobiology PDF Geological Society London Special Publications Vol 455 London The Geological Society of London pp 95 104 doi 10 1144 SP455 16 S2CID 219196969 Bennett S Christopher 2007 Reassessment of Utahdactylus from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of Utah Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27 1 257 260 doi 10 1671 0272 4634 2007 27 257 ROUFTJ 2 0 CO 2 JSTOR 4524687 S2CID 129729571 Sprague M amp McLain M A 2018 Resolving the Mesadactylus Complex of Dry Mesa Quarry Morrison Formation Colorado Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Program and Abstracts 2018 p 220 Unwin D M amp Bakhurina N N 2000 Pterosaurs from Russia Middle Asia and Mongolia In M J Benton M A Shishkin D M Unwin amp E N Kurochin Eds The age of dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia Cambridge Cambridge University Press 420 433 Barrett Paul M Butler Richard J Edwards Nicholas P Milner Andrew R 2008 Pterosaur distribution in time and space an atlas PDF Zitteliana 28 61 107 doi 10 5282 ubm epub 12007 Gao K Q Li Q G Wei M R Pak H Pak I 2009 Early Cretaceous birds and pterosaurs from the Sinuiju Series and geographic extension of the Jehol Biota into the Korean Peninsula Journal of the Paleontological Society of Korea 25 1 57 61 ISSN 1225 0929 a b Kellner Alexander W A 2003 01 01 Pterosaur phylogeny and comments on the evolutionary history of the group Geological Society London Special Publications 217 1 105 137 doi 10 1144 GSL SP 2003 217 01 10 S2CID 128892642 Andres Brian Clark James M Xing Xu 2010 A new rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Upper Jurassic of Xinjiang China and the phylogenetic relationships of basal pterosaurs Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30 1 163 187 doi 10 1080 02724630903409220 Vecchia Fabio Marco Dalla 2019 07 25 Seazzadactylus venieri gen et sp nov a new pterosaur Diapsida Pterosauria from the Upper Triassic Norian of northeastern Italy PeerJ 7 e7363 doi 10 7717 peerj 7363 PMC 6661147 PMID 31380153 a b Wei Xuefang Pegas Rodrigo Vargas Shen Caizhi Guo Yanfang Ma Waisum Sun Deyu Zhou Xuanyu 2021 03 31 Sinomacrops bondei a new anurognathid pterosaur from the Jurassic of China and comments on the group PeerJ 9 e11161 doi 10 7717 peerj 11161 PMC 8019321 PMID 33850665 a b Yang Zixiao Benton Michael J Hone David W E Xu Xing McNamara Maria E Jiang Baoyu 2022 03 03 Allometric analysis sheds light on the systematics and ontogeny of anurognathid pterosaurs Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 41 5 e2028796 doi 10 1080 02724634 2021 2028796 hdl 10468 12968 S2CID 247262846 Bestwick Jordan Unwin David M Butler Richard J Henderson Donald M Purnell Mark A November 2018 Pterosaur dietary hypotheses a review of ideas and approaches Biological Reviews 93 4 2021 2048 doi 10 1111 brv 12431 PMC 6849529 PMID 29877021 Yang Zixiao Jiang Baoyu McNamara Maria E Kearns Stuart L Pittman Michael Kaye Thomas G Orr Patrick J Xu Xing Benton Michael J January 2019 Pterosaur integumentary structures with complex feather like branching Nature Ecology amp Evolution 3 1 24 30 doi 10 1038 s41559 018 0728 7 hdl 1983 1f7893a1 924d 4cb3 a4bf c4b1592356e9 PMID 30568282 S2CID 56480710 Briggs Helen 2018 12 17 Fur flies over new pterosaur fossils BBC News Retrieved 2018 12 19 Unwin David M Martill David M December 2020 No protofeathers on pterosaurs Nature Ecology amp Evolution 4 12 1590 1591 doi 10 1038 s41559 020 01308 9 PMID 32989266 S2CID 222168569 Kellner et al 2009 The Soft Tissue of Jeholopterus Pterosauria Anurognathidae Batrachognathinae and the Structure of the Pterosaur Wing Membrane Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 277 1679 321 29 doi 10 1098 rspb 2009 0846 PMC 2842671 PMID 19656798 Unwin David M Bakhurina Natasha N September 1994 Sordes pilosus and the nature of the pterosaur flight apparatus Nature 371 6492 62 64 Bibcode 1994Natur 371 62U doi 10 1038 371062a0 S2CID 4314989 Yang Zixiao Jiang Baoyu McNamara Maria E Kearns Stuart L Pittman Michael Kaye Thomas G Orr Patrick J Xu Xing Benton Michael J December 2020 Reply to No protofeathers on pterosaurs Nature Ecology amp Evolution 4 12 1592 1593 doi 10 1038 s41559 020 01309 8 hdl 10468 11874 PMID 32989267 S2CID 222163211 D Alba Liliana January 2019 Pterosaur plumage Nature Ecology amp Evolution 3 1 12 13 doi 10 1038 s41559 018 0767 0 PMID 30568284 S2CID 56480834 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Anurognathidae amp oldid 1195831694, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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