Dsungaripterus

Dsungaripterus is a genus of dsungaripterid pterosaur which lived during the Early Cretaceous in what is now China and possibly South Korea. Its first fossil was found in the Tugulu Group (Lianmuqin and Shengjinkou Formations) of the Junggar Basin.

Dsungaripterus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, Aptian–Albian PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Reconstructed skeleton
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	†Pterosauria
Suborder:	†Pterodactyloidea
Family:	†Dsungaripteridae
Subfamily:	†Dsungaripterinae
Genus:	†Dsungaripterus Young, 1964
Species:	†D. weii
Binomial name
†Dsungaripterus weii Young, 1964

Description

Restoration of Dsungaripterus (above) and the related Noripterus

Dsungaripterus weii had a wingspan of 3–3.5 metres (9.8–11.5 ft).^[1] Like most dsungaripteroids it had a rather robust skeleton with thick walls and stouty bodily proportions, suggesting a mostly terrestrial lifestyle. The flight style of these animals is unclear, but it was probably punctuated by abrupt landings and extensive flapping.^[2]

The skull of Dsungaripterus, measuring over 46 centimeters (18 in) long,^[3] 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 1 meter (3.3 ft) long. Its most notable feature are its long, narrow, upcurved jaws with a pointed tip. It had no teeth in the front part of its jaws, which were probably used to remove prey from cracks in rocks and/or the sandy, muddy inland environments it inhabited. It had knobbly flat teeth more to the back of the jaw that were well suited for crushing the armor of shellfish or other hard objects.^[4] Thus, it is commonly interpreted that dsungaripterids were durophagous and possibly piscivorous pterosaurs.^[5] Additionally, Dsungaripterus also had a palate similar to that of azhdarchoids.^[3]

History of discovery

Holotype specimen, Paleozoological Museum of China

Dsungaripterus was described 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 honoring paleontologist C.M. Wei of the Palaeontological Division, Institute of Science, Bureau of Petroleum of Xinjiang. The holotype is IVPP V-2776, a partial skull and skeleton from the Lianmuqin Formation.^[1] In 1973, more material has been found within the Shengjinkou Formation, which includes almost complete skulls.^[6]

In 1980 Peter Galton renamed Pterodactylus brancai (Reck 1931) from the Tendaguru Formation into Dsungaripterus brancai, but the identification is now commonly rejected.^[7] In 1982 Natasha Bakhurina named a new species, 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. A dsungaripterid wing finger phalanx was reported in 2002 from the Hasandong Formation of South Korea,^[8] and was identified in 2015 and 2018 as Dsungaripterus? cf. D. weii.^[9][10]

Classification

Skull IVPP V4064, Paleozoological Museum of China

Skeletal reconstruction

Dsungaripterus was classified by Yang as a member of the Dsungaripteridae. Below is a cladogram showing the results of a phylogenetic analysis presented by Andres and colleagues in 2014. They recovered Dsungaripterus within the clade Dsungaripteromorpha (a subgroup within the Azhdarchoidea), more specifically within the Dsungaripteridae, sister taxon to Domeykodactylus. Their cladogram is shown below.^[11]

Dsungaripteromorpha	Dsungaripteridae Dsungaripterinae Dsungaripterus weii Domeykodactylus ceciliae Noripterinae Noripterus parvus Noripterus complicidens Thalassodrominae Thalassodromeus sethi Tupuxuara longicristatus Tupuxuara leonardii

In 2019, a different topology, this time by Kellner and colleagues, was published. In this study, Dsungaripterus was recovered outside the Azhdarchoidea, within the larger group Tapejaroidea, sister taxon to Noripterus. The cladogram of the analysis is shown below.^[12]

Tapejaroidea	Dsungaripteridae Dsungaripterus weii Noripterus parvus Azhdarchoidea Azhdarchidae Chaoyangopteridae Tapejaromorpha Keresdrakon vilsoni Tapejaridae Thalassodrominae Tapejarinae

See also

• List of pterosaur genera
• Timeline of pterosaur research

References

1. Young, C.-C. (1964). "On a new pterosaurian from Sinkiang, China" (PDF). Vertebrate PalAsiatica: 221–225.
2. Witton, Mark (2013). Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy. Princeton University Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0691150611.
3. Chen, He; Jiang, Shunxing; Kellner, Alexander W. A.; Cheng, Xin; Zhang, Xinjun; Qiu, Rui; Li, Yang; Wang, Xiaolin (April 1, 2020). "New anatomical information on Dsungaripterus weii Young, 1964 with focus on the palatal region". PeerJ. 8: e8741. doi:10.7717/peerj.8741. PMC 7127482. PMID 32274262.
4. Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 105. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.
5. 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.
6. Young, C.-C. (1973). "Reports of Paleontological Expedition to Sinkiang (II). Pterosaurian Fauna from Wuerho, Sinkiang". Academy Sinica: Memoirs of the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Paleoanthropology: 18–35.
7. Martill, D.M.; Frey, E.; Diaz, G.C.; Bell, C.M. (2000). "Reinterpretation of a Chilean pterosaur and the occurrence of Dsungeripteridae in South America" (PDF). Geological Magazine. 137 (1): 19–25. Bibcode:2000GeoM..137...19M. doi:10.1017/S0016756800003502. S2CID 128593191.
8. Lim, Jong-Deock; Baek, Kwang-Seok; Yang, Seung Young (2002). "A new record of a pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Korea". Current Science. 82 (10): 1208–1210. JSTOR 24107042.
9. Yang, S.Y. (2015). "Study history and research ethics of the dinosaur, pterosaur and bird tracks from Korea". Journal of the Geological Society of Korea. 51 (2): 127–140. doi:10.14770/jgsk.2015.51.2.127.
10. Kim, Jeong Yul; Huh, Min (2018). Dinosaurs, Birds, and Pterosaurs of Korea: A Paradise of Mesozoic Vertebrates (PDF). Springer Nature. ISBN 978-981-10-6998-7.
11. Andres, B.; Clark, J.; Xu, X. (2014). "The Earliest Pterodactyloid and the Origin of the Group". Current Biology. 24 (9): 1011–6. Bibcode:2014CBio...24.1011A. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.030. PMID 24768054.
12. Kellner, Alexander W. A.; Weinschütz, Luiz C.; Holgado, Borja; Bantim, Renan A. M.; Sayão, Juliana M. (August 19, 2019). "A new toothless pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea) from Southern Brazil with insights into the paleoecology of a Cretaceous desert". Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências. 91 (suppl 2): e20190768. doi:10.1590/0001-3765201920190768. ISSN 0001-3765. PMID 31432888.