ENGLISH_282_STUDY
ENGLISH_282_STUDY
ENGLISH_282_STUDY
ENGLISH
ENGLISH_282_STUDY
pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea.Fossil remains of this group date back
from the Early to Late Cretaceous periods (Valanginian to Turonian stages), around 140 to
though most genera were recovered in Europe, Asia and South America.They were the most
diverse and successful pterosaurs during the Early Cretaceous, but throughout the Late
Ornithocheiromorpha was defined in 2014 by Andres and colleagues, and they made
ever flown.Members of this group are also regarded to have some of the largest pterosaur
wingspans, such as the one estimated for the huge Tropeognathus, though still not as large
as those estimated for the azhdarchids, which may have reached up to 12 meters (39
more terrestrial setting, but their success had made them the top predators of the skies, as
well as the most common type of fish-eating pterosaur throughout the early Late
evolution to the pteranodontians, this is due to the similar flying techniques and flight
locomotions, as well as their diet, which mainly consisted of fish, and therefore also hunted
very similarly.Ornithocheiromorphs also flew like soaring birds, keeping their wings
stretched and rarely flapping.== History of research ==
The first specimens of ornithocheiromorphs were unearthed at a chalk pit near Burham in
Kent, England.In 1846, British paleontologist James Scott Bowerbank named and described
the remains found as Pterodactylus giganteus, as it was common at that time to assign any
new described pterosaur species to Pterodactylus.In the same chalk pit as P. giganteus, two
other pterosaur species were discovered.The first was named in 1851 by Bowerbank as
Pterodactylus cuvieri, in honor of the prominent German naturalist and zoologist Georges
Cuvier, while the second was described in the same year by British paleontologist Sir
species of a newly created genus called Lonchodectes (meaning "lance biter") in a review by
English paleontologist Reginald Walter Hooley in 1914.Confusingly, this species was also
long regarded, incorrectly, as the type species of Ornithocheirus.In 1861, further pterosaur
specimens were found in the UK, and were given the new species Pterodactylus simus by
Owen.British paleontologist Harry Govier Seeley then created the new genus
Ornithocheirus for the new species in the same year, the generic name translating as "bird
hand" is due to the notion of the time that pterosaurs were the ancestors of modern birds.In
1870, Seeley reassigned the species Pterodactylus cuvieri as Ornithocheirus cuvieri.In 1874,
Richard Owen proposed two new genera, Coloborhynchus, meaning "maimed beak", and
Taissa Rodrigues & Alexander Kellner made a deeper analysis on the species Pterodactylus
cuvieri.In the analysis, they stated that it needed a separate genus, and assigning it to
Ornithocheirus was inappropriate, therefore, they created the new genus called
Cimoliopterus, with the new resulting combination Cimoliopterus cuvieri.In the same study,
Rodrigues & Kellner also reviewed the species Pterodactylus giganteus, and reassigned it to
a newly created genus called Lonchodraco, this resulted in a new combination called
Lonchodraco giganteus.In 1887, Seeley had described new fossil remains from the Isle of
Wight, an island off the coast of southern England.He thought it belonged to some kind of
another specimen found on the same site.He then considered it another species of
Ornithodesmus.In 1901, Seeley named this new species as O. latidens, meaning "wide
specimen of that genus was based on differed markedly from those of Hooley's specimen.In
1993, the British paleontologists Stafford C. Howse and Andrew C. Milner concluded that
the holotype sacrum and only specimen of O. cluniculus didn't belong to a pterosaur, but
attempts had been made to compare the sacrum of O. cluniculus with those of pterosaurs,
and that O. latidens had in effect been treated as the type species of the genus
genus called Istiodactylus.They had also named a new family called Istiodactylidae, with
Wellnhofer.The generic name is derived from Greek τρόπις, tropis, meaning "keel", and