Taxa

PTEROSAURIA

7월 8, 2025 - By user

PTEROSAURIA

CLASSIFICATION

Animalia: Vertebrata: Tetrapoda: Sauropsida: Archosauromorpha:
Ornithodira

CLADOGRAM:

--Pterosauria sensu Sereno, 1991 emended herein "winged lizards" == {Anurognathus + Campylognathoides + Dimorphodon + Dorygnathus + Eudimorphodon + Peteinosaurus + Preondactylus + Pterodactylus + Rhamphorhynchus + Scaphognathus} =Ornithosauria
  |     INCERTAE SEDIS:
  |     unnamed crested, toothed form
  |     indeterminate material -- Barremian -- Australia
  |     indeterminate material -- Aptian -- Australia
  |     unnamed form -- Berriasian -- Africa
  |     unnamed large Dolomia di Forni form (wing phalanx 4 (137+mm long)) -- Norian -- Italy
  |     Comodactylus
  |     Laopteryx
  |     Rhamphinion
  |--Preondactylus
  `--+--Anurognathidae
     |  |?-Dendrorhynchoides
     |  |--Anurognathus
     |  `--Batrachognathus
     `--+--Sordes
        `--+--Scaphognathus
           |?-"Odontorhynchus"
           `--+--Dorygnathus
              `--+--Dimorphodontidae
                 |  |--Dimorphodon
                 |  |?-Nesodactylus
                 |  `--Peteinosaurus
                 `--+--Campylognathoididae
                    |  |--Campylognathoides
                    |  `--Eudimorphodon
                    `--+--Rhamphorhynchidae
                       |  |--Rhamphocephalus
                       |  `--Rhamphorhynchus
                       `--+--Angustinaripterus
                          |--Parapsicephalus
                          `---->Pterodactyloidea

ALTERNATE CLADOGRAM:

ESSAY

FLIERS U
NLIKE A
NY OTHER:Although they were the only other flying archosaurs, pterosaurs were not closely related to birds. Their wings had a very different structure. Birds support their wings with their second finger (or possibly third, if the frame shift hypothesis is true), while pterosaurs used the fourth. Additionally, pterosaurian wings were largely made up of skin membranes strengthened by fibers, while avian wings consist mainly of feathers.
O
RIGINS AND EVOLUTION:Pterosaurs originated at about the same time as the dinosaurs. They began as small, long-tailed forms, sometimes called “rhamphorhynchoids”. From these came larger, short-tailed forms, which make up the group Pterodactyloidea.
There is a recent theory that pterosaurs were not archosaurs, but derived from some type of basal archosauromorph. For more: The Pterosaur Home Page
INTEGUMENT:Pterosaurs were unique among reptiles in that at least some of them were covered with hair, similar but not homologous to mammalian hair. Although in some cases fibers in the wing membrane have been mistaken for hair, some fossils such as those of Sordes pilosus (“hairy demon”) do show hair on the head, neck, and torso, much like modern-day bats.