User:John Troodon/sandbox/Pterosaurs

=Peteinosaurus=

Peteinosaurus is a genus of rhamphorynchoid pterosaurs. It was among the earliest known animals of his kind. Its classification isn't easy. It combines features of primitive pterosaurs, such as Rhamphorhynchus, and advanced animals like Anurognathus. =Anurognathus=

Anurognathus is a genus of small pterosaurs, that lived approximately 150 million years ago. The species is based on a holotype BSP 1922.I.42 from Solnhofen.

Paleobiology
The strangest fact about Anurognathus is that its atil is extremely short, compared to other rhamphorhynchoids. The same anatomic detail is seen in another anurognathid - Batrachognathus.

In popular culture
Anurognathus was featured in the second episode of the British documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs. It was shown having a mutual symbiotic relationship with the dinosaur Diplodocus, eating parasitic insects off its skin. Such a, purely hypothetical, symbiosis would make it similar to the modern day tick bird.

Anurognathus was later featured in the fifth episode of the ITV science fiction television series Primeval. Here, Anurognathus was erroneously portrayed as living in the Late Cretaceous period, 85 million years ago, with behavior akin to a piranha. The producers of the program portrayed Anurognathus as having an amazingly keen sense of smell, able to detect blood from hundreds of feet away. A flock was depicted stripping the flesh from a carcass in a matter of minutes, behavior at odds with anatomical evidence that shows this species to have been insectivorous akin to the modern Frogmouth. These changes were made for dramatic effect. =Dimorphodon=

Dimorphodon was a genus of medium-sized pterosaur from the early Jurassic Period. It was named by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1859. Dimorphodon means "two-form tooth", referring to the fact that it had two distinct types of teeth in its jaws - which is comparatively rare among reptiles.It lived in the Early Jurassic of Europe and was among the earliest pterosaurs.

Discovery
The first Dimorphodon remains were found in famous for their fossils Lyme Regis by Mary Anning. Next the specimen wasnstudied by William Buckland, a person who named Megalosaurus, and he described during the meeting of Royal Geological Society. First Buckland thought it is a specimen of Pterodactylus, but next renamed it as "Dimorphodon"

Next, in 1858 Richard Owen found two other dimorphodon specimens, now including skulls. He concluded that a skull of Dimorphodon is much different from those of Pterodactylus and named the animal "Dimorphodon.

Phylogeny
Phylogeny of Rhamphorhynchoidea by Unwin(2003).

|__Dimorphodontidae |______Peteinosaurus |________Dimorphodon |__Caelidracones |__Anurognathidae - Perhaps synonymous with Dimorphodontidae =Pterodactylus=

Pterodactylus("flying finger") is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from Late Jurassic of Solnhofen, Germany. It was one of the first pterodactyloids. Named by Cuvier.