Cycnorhamphus

Cycnorhamphus

Animalia

Cycnorhamphus
Temporal range: Late Jurassic
Fossil cast
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: †Pterosauria
Suborder: †Pterodactyloidea
Family: †Gallodactylidae
Subfamily: †Gallodactylinae
Fabre, 1974
Genus: †Cycnorhamphus
Seeley, 1870
Species: †C. suevicus
Binomial name
Cycnorhamphus suevicus
(Quenstedt, 1855)
[originally Pterodactylus]
Synonyms

Pterodactylus suevicus
Quenstedt, 1855
Pterodactylus württembergicus
Meyer, 1855
Pterodactylus eurychirus
Wagner, 1858
Gallodactylus canjuersensis
Fabre, 1974
Gallodactylus suevicus
(Quenstedt, 1855) [originally Pterodactylus]
Cycnorhamphus canjuersensis
(Fabre, 1974) [originally Gallodactylus]
Historical skeletal restoration of Cycnorhamphus suevicus

Cycnorhamphus (meaning "swan beak") is a genus of ctenchasmatoid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of France and Germany.[1]

In 1855 a fossil in a plate of shale from the Tithonian, found near Nusplingen in Württemberg, holotype GPIT "Orig. Quenstedt 1855, Taf. 1", was named Pterodactylus suevicus by Friedrich August Quenstedt.[2]

In 1870 Harry Govier Seeley assigned it to a new genus: Cycnorhamphus. In 1907 however, Felix Plieninger rejected this split, an opinion then shared by most paleontologists. In 1974 Jacques Fabre, when concluding that a new species found and named by him, Gallodactylus canjuersensis, was congeneric with P. suevicus, did not revive Cycnorhamphus, but judged that the latter name was unavailable because of mistakes in the diagnosis by Seeley. P. suevicus thus became Gallodactylus suevicus. However, in 1996 Christopher Bennett pointed out that such mistakes do not invalidate a name and that therefore Cycnorhamphus has priority, making Gallodactylus canjuersensis C. canjuersensis.[2] In 2010, Bennett published further re-study of the fossils, concluding that the differences between the two species could be explained by age, sex or individual variation, and formally synonymized C. canjuersensis and C. suevicus.

Cycnorhamphus had a long beak with teeth only at the tip of its jaws, possibly an adaptation to seek invertebrates in the mud. Its wingspan was about 135 centimetres.[citation needed]

See also

Abyssal Brachiopod 00148.jpg Paleontology portal

References

  1. ^ Unwin, David M. (2006). The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time. New York: Pi Press. p. 272. ISBN 0-13-146308-X. 
  2. ^ a b Bennett, S. Christopher (1996). "On the taxonomic status of Cycnorhamphus and Gallodactylus (Pterosauria: Pterodactyloidea)". Journal of Paleontology 70 (2): 335–338. 


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