Pterodactyloidea
Skeletal reconstruction of Pteranodon
- Worldwide
The short-tailed pterosaurs ( Pterodactyloidea ) are a group ( taxon ) pterosaur ( Pterosauria ).
The fossil record of this large clade of pterosaurs sets in the early Jurassic a ( Hettangian ) and extends to the end of the Mesozoic at the Cretaceous - Tertiary boundary ( 199.6 to 65.5 mya ). Among the short-tailed pterodactyls were the largest flying creatures of the earth's history. Her greatest representative was Quetzalcoatlus from the Late Cretaceous of Texas, which reached a wingspan of at least 12 meters. The phylogenetically oldest and also one of the smallest members of this group was pterodactyl from the Central European Upper Jurassic with a wingspan of 50 to 75 centimeters. This genus, which was first found in the Solnhofen limestones of Bavaria, was eponymous for the entire group.
Features
My general plan was very similar to those of long-tailed pterosaurs ( " Rhamphorhynchoidea " ), but they had a much shorter tail, which had lost its meaning for the flight well, and an elongated neck and head. Moreover, their metacarpal bones were extended, thereby, biped to black blank with all four limbs, upright standing.
System
The short-tailed pterosaurs are divided into four taxa that were ranked in the classical rank-based system as a family. There are the Ornithocheiroidea, which mainly large glider as Pteranodon belong and which overhung similar nourished as today's albatrosses and frigate of fish across the seas. Further groups are the Ctenochasmatoidea who had a Reuse teeth and their food probably wading studied in shallow areas of the rivers and lakes that Dsungaripteroidea who developed a crushing scissors bite to eat to hard-shelled food such as mussels or other molluscs and finally the Azhdarchoidea whose early forms of fish -eaters were the later but more terrestrial habitats inhabited and probably often stayed on the ground and there were hunting on the type of giant storks or like marabou fed on carrion.
The family relationships illustrated by the following cladogram:
Other groups of long-tailed pterosaurs
Ctenochasmatoidea
Ornithocheiroidea
Dsungaripteroidea
Azhdarchoidea