Eupterodactyloidea

Eupterodactyloids
Temporal range: Cretaceous, 145–66 Ma
Mounted skeleton Pteranodon longiceps
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Order: Pterosauria
Clade: Caelidracones
Suborder: Pterodactyloidea
Infraorder: Eupterodactyloidea
Bennett, 1994
Subgroups

Eupterodactyloidea (meaning "true Pterodactyloidea") is an extinct group of pterodactyloid pterosaurs that existed from the earliest Early Cretaceous to the latest Late Cretaceous (Berriasian to Maastrichtian stages). Eupterodactyloids lived on all continents except Antarctica.[1]

Classification

Eupterodactyloidea was named by S. Christopher Bennett in 1994 as an infraorder of the suborder Pterodactyloidea. Bennett defined it as an apomorphy-based clade.[2] However, in 2010, Brian Andres re-defined the group as a stem-based taxon in his dissertation,[3] and then formalized the definition in 2014 as all pterosaurs more closely related to Pteranodon longiceps than to Pterodactylus antiquus.[4] The slightly more exclusive group Ornithocheiroidea was re-defined in 2003 by Alexander Kellner. He defined it as the least inclusive clade containing Anhanguera blittersdorffi, Pteranodon longiceps, Dsungaripterus weii, and Quetzalcoatlus northropi. Ornithocheiroidea has often been used for a much more inclusive group including only the branch of traditional "ornithocheirid" pterosaurs, though this use has since fallen out of favor by many researchers after years of competing definitions for the various pterodactyloid clades. The compromise definitions by Andres and others have since become more widely adopted.

Below is a cladogram showing the results of a phylogenetic analysis presented by Andres et al., 2014.[4] Andres and colleagues (2014) followed this definition, and also used a branch-based definition for Eupterodactyloidea, making them very similar in content.[4]

Eupterodactyloidea

Haopterus


 Ornithocheiroidea 
 Pteranodontia 

Nyctosauridae


 Pteranodontoidea 

Pteranodon



Ornithocheiromorpha




 Azhdarchoidea 

Tapejaromorpha


 Neoazhdarchia 

Dsungaripteromorpha


Neopterodactyloidea

Chaoyangopteridae



Azhdarchidae







References

  1. Richard J. Butler, Stephen L. Brusatte, Brian B. Andres and Roger B. J. Benson (2012). "How do geological sampling biases affect studies of morphological evolution in deep time? A case study of the Pterosauria (Reptilia: Archosauria)". Evolution 66 (1): 147–162. doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01415.x.
  2. S. Christopher Bennett (1994). "Taxonomy and systematics of the Late Cretaceous pterosaur Pteranodon (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea)" (PDF). Occasional Papers of the Natural History Museum of the University of Kansas 169: 1–70.
  3. Andres, Brian Blake (2010). Systematics of the Pterosauria. Yale University. p. 366. A preview that shows the cladogram without clade names
  4. 1 2 3 Andres, B.; Clark, J.; Xu, X. (2014). "The Earliest Pterodactyloid and the Origin of the Group". Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.030.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Saturday, April 09, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.