Banguela oberlii is a dsungaripterid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil.

 The Swiss collector Urs Oberli acquired a pterosaur jaw fragment from the Chapada do Araripe. In 2005, this was described by André Jacques Veldmeijer e.a. and referred to Thalassodromeus sethi. In 2006, Veldmeijer named it as a new Thalassodromeus species: Thalassodromeus oberli. However, this was done in his dissertation and thus merely resulted in an invalid nomen ex dissertatione.

 In 2014 it was named and described by Jaime Headden and Hebert Bruno Nascimento Campos as a separate genus Banguela, with the type species Banguela oberlii. The genus name is a Brazilian Portuguese word for "toothless one", especially used as an affectionate term for elderly women. The specific name honours Oberli.

 The holotype, NMSG SAO 251093, was probably found in the Romualdo Formation, also known as the Romualdo Member of the Santana Formation, dating from the Aptian-Albian. It consists of the symphysis, fused front end, of the lower jaws.

 Banguela has an estimated skull length of about two feet and wingspan of over twelve feet. The symphysis, with a preserved length of 273 millimetres, curves upwards and has a relatively short depression at its upper rear end. The front upper edge of the symphysis is sharp. The front bottom edge is sharp too but lacks a true crest. There are no teeth or tooth sockets present in the fragment.

 Veldmeijer had already in 2005 noted similarities to Dsungaripterus, but considered the available data to be insufficient to draw any conclusions from this. In 2014, Headden & Campos placed Banguela in the Dsungaripteridae, in a basal position. Banguela is unique among dsungaripterid pterosaurs due to a presumed total absence of teeth. Other pterosaur groups, such as pteranodontids, nyctosaurids and azhdarchoids, have also lost their teeth, indicating that toothloss might have independently occurred at least four times among pterosaurs. However, because dsungaripterids are occasionally recovered as derived azhdarchoids, it is possible that toothloss has occurred more often, if as an instance of Dollo's Law azhdarchoids should be originally toothless. If there was a large number of cases, Banguela suggests how it developed in most of these: the development of horned rhamphothecae in the jawtips, with progressive tooth rarification until they cease to be useful.

 It is worth to note that dsungaripteroids have some of the most specialised teeth of all sauropsids, so Banguela's toothlessness must indicate some degree of divergent specialisation.

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Tags: Вымершие рептилии, Мел, авеметатарзалии, аждархойды, архозавроморфы, архозавры, джунгариптероиды, диапсиды, монофенестраты, орнитохейройды, птеродактили, птерозавры

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 The first, holotype specimen of Noripterus (IVPP V.4062, type locality IVPP 64045) preserved the front part of the skull and lower jaws, vertebrae, and partial limbs and pelvis. Noripterus was quite similar to the contemporaneous Dsungaripterus, though it was estimated to be a third shorter. It has long narrow neck vertebrae and, like Dsungaripterus, a crest and no teeth in the front of the lower jaw. The teeth that are present are well-developed and spaced fairly far apart. The sharp snout is straight and not pointed upwards as with Dsungaripterus.

 

 Because of its similarity to Dsungaripterus, Noripterus has been assigned to the family Dsungaripteridae.

 The genus Phobetor, named after the Greek god of nightmares, was in 1982 originally described by Natasha Bakhurina as a species of Dsungaripterus (D. parvus), based on a single lower leg bone, PIN 3953. The discovery of more remains later, among which an almost complete skull, GIN 100/31, was reason for Bakhurina to name D. parvus in 1986 as a separate genus, and the species name became Phobetor parvus. However, the genus name Phobetor was already being used as a junior synonym of a species of sculpin, namely, the arctic staghorn sculpin, Gymnocanthus tricuspis (synonym "Phobetor tricuspis" Krøyer, 1844) and thus unavailable. In 2009, Lü and colleagues re-examined much of the known dsungaripterid fossil material, and found that "Phobetor" was indistinguishable from Noripterus, causing them to refer to it as a junior synonym.

 Assigning the "Phobetor" material to Noripterus increases the known size of the latter as it indicates a maximum wingspan of 4 metres (13.1 ft).

 Dsungaripterids like Noripterus are interpreted as adapted for feeding on fish and shellfish, with long narrow toothless beak tips for probing for and picking up suitable prey, and robust teeth farther back for cracking shells. The skulls of these animals are more robust than those of other pterosaurs, as well as their limbs and vertebrae.

 Noripterus lived in the same time and place as the larger Dsungaripterus, in formations that indicate the presence of extensive inland lake systems. Because Noripterus had a more lightly built skull with weaker, more slender teeth than its larger contemporary, it is likely that the two pterosaurs occupied separate ecological niches, with Dsungaripterus hunting in the shallow parts of lakes and eating hard-shelled animals, while Noripterus fed on fish from deeper regions of the lakes.

 Новый ископаемый материал птерозавра нориптеруса (Noripterus) из семейства джунгариптерид найден в местечке Tatal в западной Монголии (возраст ранний мел). Его останки позволили по новому диагностировать семейство Dsungaripteridae и нориптеруса. Все птерозавры, найденные в этом месте принадлежат джунгариптеридам (или джунгароптериксу или нориптериксу). Фобетор (Phobetor) представляет младший синоним нориптеруса. Различные формы передних половин черепов, а также зубов, говорят о том, что джунгариптерус и нориптерус могли занимать разные экологические ниши. Джунгариптерус имел размах крыльев около 5 метров, в то время как нориптерус - не больше 4 метров. У первого зубы толстые и мощные, позволявшие питаться не только рыбой, но и относительно крупными животными, а у второго зубы мелкие и слабые, тонкие и предназначенные только для рыбы. Джунгариптерус питался по берегам водоёмов, а нориптерус охотился преимущественно над глубокими водами. 

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 Dsungaripterus was a genus of pterosaur, with an average wingspan of 3 metres (9.8 ft). It lived during the Early Cretaceous, in China, where the first fossil was found in the Junggar Basin.

 Dsungaripterus was in 1964 named by Yang Zhongjian. The genus name combines a reference to the Junggar Basin with a Latinized Greek pteron, "wing". The type species is Dsungaripterus weii, the specific name honouring paleontologist C.M. Wei of the Palaeontological Division, Institute of Science, Bureau of Petroleum of Sinkiang. The holotype is IVPP No. V-2776, a partial skull and skeleton. From 1973 more material has been found including almost complete skulls.

 In 1980 Peter Galton renamed Pterodactylus brancai (Reck 1931), a form from a late Jurassic African formation, into Dsungaripterus brancai, but the identification is now commonly rejected. In 1982 Natasha Bakhurina named a Dsungaripterus parvus based on a smaller skeleton from Mongolia. Later this was renamed into "Phobetor", a preoccupied name, and in 2009 concluded to be identical to Noripterus. In 2002 a Dsungaripterus wing finger phalanx was reported from Korea.

 Dsungaripterus weii had a wing span of 3 to 3.5 metres (9.8-11.5 ft). Its skull, forty to fifty centimetres long, bore a low bone crest that ran down from the base of the skull to halfway to the beak. Dsungaripterus's head and neck were together almost a meter long. Its most notable feature are its long, narrow, upcurved jaws with a pointed tip, making the animal look like a pair of flying tweezers. It had no teeth in the front part of its jaws, which were probably used to remove shellfish and worms from cracks in rocks or/and the sandy, muddy beaches it inhabited. It had knobbly flat teeth more to the back of the jaw that were well suited for crushing the armor of shellfish.

 Dsungaripterus was by Yang classified as a member of the Dsungaripteridae.

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 Domeykodactylus was a genus of dsungaripteroid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous-age Quebrada de la Carreta of Antofagasta, Chile.

 The genus was named in 2000 by David Martill, Eberhard Frey, Guillermo Chong Diaz and Charles Michael Bell. The type species is Domeykodactylus ceciliae. The genus name is derived from the Cordillera Domeyko and Greek daktylos, "finger" in reference to the wing finger typical of pterosaurs. The specific name honours geologist Cecilia Demargasso of the Universidad Católica del Norte, "who was so kind to us".

 Domeykodactylus is based on holotype Departmento de Ciencias Geológicas at the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta 250973, found in the Sierra da Candeleros. It consists of a partial mandible; a premaxilla, present in the same rock, is referred to it as paratype. The fossil had at first been thought to belong to Pterodaustro. Domeykodactylus had a crest running along the top of the premaxilla. The bone structure of the crest consists of vertical trabeculae, narrow struts; it was this texture that had originally been mistaken for the fine filter teeth of Pterodaustro.

 The mandible has a short symphysis. There are sixteen tooth sockets, from which the teeth themselves have been lost, in each dentary. The sockets are narrow, oval and slightly elevated, with a raised margin, above the level of the jaw. The teeth were probably small and towards the back more widely spaced and declining in size.

 The skull length has been estimated at thirty centimetres and the wingspan at one metre (3.28 ft).

 The describers found Domeykodactylus similar to both the Ctenochasmatidae and Dsungaripteridae in the crest; because of the elevated tooth sockets it was assigned to the latter group. It was the first published example of a dsungapterid in South America, most other members of the family being from Asia.

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 Puntanipterus was a genus of dsungaripterid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous La Cruz Formation of San Luis, Argentina.

 The genus was in 1975 named by José Bonaparte and Teresa Sánchez. The type species is Puntanipterus globosus. The genus name refers to the Puntanos, the colloquial name for the inhabitants of the province of San Luis after the old name of their capital "San Luis de la Punta de los Venados", and combines this with a Latinized Greek pteron, "wing". The specific name means "spherical" in Latin, a reference to the form of the lower tibia.

 It is based on holotype PVL 3869 (earlier FML 3869) found in 1972, a 105 millimetres long tibiotarsus and seven centimetres long fibula; referred to it were a back vertebra and a wing and foot phalanx. The leg bones were described as similar to those of Pterodaustro (from slightly younger rocks), except for having an expanded spherical joint at the ankle and spiny processes on the side faces of the tibia at that end.

 Bonaparte in 1978 classified Puntanipterus as a member of the Pterodaustridae. The same year Peter Wellnhofer was more careful and limited his assessment to a Pterodactyloidea incertae sedis. In 1980 Peter Galton concluded it belonged to the Dsungaripteridae. It was still by many considered to be a dsungaripterid by the time Peter Wellnhofer published The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs (several editions in the 1990s).

 However, in the nineties several tibiae conforming to that of Puntanipterus were found in the same strata as Pterodaustro; a direct comparison is only impossible because more complete specimens of the latter are always very compressed, deforming the ankle morphology; but smaller fragments containing not-compressed ankles all have the build of a Puntanipterus tibiotarsus. This is by South American workers seen as a strong indication that both forms are identical.

 Glut reports a personal communication from Laura Codorniú and Luis Chiappe (2004) that Puntanipterus should be regarded as a junior synonym of Pterodaustro, but it remains to be seen if this will be supported in the future; it was not done in David Unwin's The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time, published in 2006 (he recognized it as a possibly valid species of uncertain relationships).

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 Germanodactylus ("German finger") is a genus of dsungaripteroid pterodactyloid pterosaur from Late Jurassic-age rocks of Germany, including the Solnhofen limestone. Its specimens were long thought to pertain to Pterodactylus. Its head crest is a distinctive feature.

 Germanodactylus is described as being "raven-sized" in weight. G. cristatus had a 0.98 wingspan (3.2 ft) and a 13 centimeter long (5.1 in) skull, while G. rhamphastinus was somewhat larger, with a 1.08 meter wingspan (3.5 ft) and a skull 21 centimeters long (8.3 in).

 Germanodactylus is known for its head crest, which had a bony portion (a low ridge running up the midline of the skull) and a soft-tissue portion that more than doubled its height. The bony part does not go as far up the head in G. cristatus as in G. rhamphastinus. The soft-tissue portion was not known early on, being first described in 2002 by S. Christopher Bennett. It was probably composed of cornified epidermis. Germanodactylus is the first genus for which a soft-tissue component of the crest is known, but similar structures were probably widespread among pterosaurs.

 This genus is unspecialized compared to the pterosaurs of the Cretaceous, and has had varying placements in Pterosauria. Yang Zhongjian, who named the genus, gave it its own family Germanodactylidae. Bennett included the genus in the family Pterodactylidae, and Alexander W.A. Kellner found it to be related to Pterodactylus in his 2003 phylogenetic analysis. David M. Unwin, on the other hand, preferred to consider it a basal dsungaripteroid, a group that evolved into dedicated shellfish-eaters.

 G. cristatus is based on specimen BSP 1892.IV.1, from the Solnhofen limestone of Eichstätt, Germany. It was originally described by Plieninger in 1901 as a specimen of Pterodactylus kochi, and was given its current specific name by Carl Wiman in 1925, meaning "crested" in Latin. Yang Zhongjian determined that it deserved its own genus in 1964. Second species G. ramphastinus (in 1858 accidentally revised to rhamphastinus by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer) was named as a distinct species long before G. cristatus, described by Johann Andreas Wagner in 1851 as a species of the now deprecated genus Ornithocephalus. The specific name refers to the toucan, ramphastinos in Greek. It is based on specimen BSP AS.I.745, a skeleton from the slightly younger Mörnsheimer Limestone of Daiting, Germany. Peter Wellnhofer added it to Germanodactylus in 1970, although Maisch and his coauthors have suggested that it deserves its own genus, "Daitingopterus" David M. Unwin has also referred miscellaneous limb bones and vertebrae from the somewhat older Kimmeridge Clay of Dorset, England to the genus; these finds at the time marked the earliest appearance of short-tailed pterosaurs in the fossil record.

 Bennett suggested in 1996 that Germanodactylus represented adults of Pterodactylus, but this has been rejected by further studies, including his own. Bennett's 2006 reappraisal of Germanodactylus found both species to be valid and included within the genus, with G. cristatus known from four specimens including two juveniles, and G. rhamphastinus from two specimens. The genus differs from other pterosaurs by a combination of characteristics including a sharply pointed jaw tip, 4-5 premaxillary teeth and 8-12 maxillary teeth per side of the upper jaw, robust maxillary teeth that, unlike in Pterodactylus, are not reduced in size farther from the tip of the jaw, a naso-antorbital fenestra twice the length of the eye socket, and various proportional differences. G. cristatus differs from G. rhampastinus by having no teeth in the tip of the jaw and fewer teeth (~13 in each side of the upper jaw and ~12 in the lower versus 16 upper and 15 lower on each side for G. rhamphastinus).

 Dsungaripteroidea is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. The earliest known fossils attributed to this group are from the Kimmeridgian-age Upper Jurassic Argiles d'Octeville Formation of France, dated to around 155 million years ago, and belonging to the species Normannognathus wellnhoferi. The last known dsungaripteroid species is Lonchognathosaurus acutirostris, from the Albian-age Lower Cretaceous Lianmuqin Formation of Xinjiang, China, about 112 million years ago.

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