Apatomerus

Taxobox
name = "Apatomerus"
fossil_range = Early Cretaceous
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
superordo = ?Sauropterygia
ordo = ?Plesiosauria
genus = "Apatomerus"
genus_authority = Williston, 1903
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision =
* "A. mirus" Williston, 1903 (type species)

"Apatomerus" (meaning "deceptive femur"), is a genus of extinct reptile known from a single fossil (KUVP 1199) from the Albian-age (Lower Cretaceous) Kiowa Shale of Kansas, USA. This bone, collected in 1893, was first identified as the thighbone of a crocodilian, but was described in 1903 by Samuel Wendell Williston as belonging to a pterosaur.cite journal |last=Williston |first=Samuel W. |authorlink=Samuel Wendell Williston |year=1903 |title=On the osteology of "Nyctosaurus" ("Nyctodactylus"), with notes on American pterosaurs |journal=Field Museum Publications (Geological Series) |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages= 125–163 ] This identification held through the 1970s,cite book |last=Wellnhofer |first=Peter |authorlink=Peter Wellnhofer |year=1978 |series=Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie 19 |title=Pterosauria |pages=66 |isbn=3437302698 |language=German ] but has been abandoned. Recent summaries of pterosaur genera, such as Wellnhofer, 1991cite book |last=Wellnhofer |first=Peter |authorlink=Peter Wellnhofer |title=The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs |origyear=1991 |year=1996 |publisher=Barnes and Noble Books |location=New York |isbn=0-7607-0154-7 |pages=1-192 ] and Glut, 2004cite book |last=Glut |first=Donald F. |authorlink=Donald F. Glut |title=Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia. 4th Supplement |year=2006 |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc. |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |isbn=0-7864-2295-5 |pages=583-633 |chapter=Appendix One: Pterosaurs] did not include it, and Mike Everhart, an authority on the rocks of the Western Interior Seaway (including the Kiowa Shale) identifies the bone as more likely the upper part of a plesiosaurian propodial (a limb bone).cite book |last=Everhart |first=M.J. |year=2005 |title=Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |page=p. 206 |isbn=0253345472] cite web |url=http://www.oceansofkansas.com/KS-Plesio.html |title=KANSAS PLESIOSAURS |accessdate=2007-07-30 |last=Everhart |first=Mike |date=2007-05-29 |work=Oceans of Kansas ]

References