Anhanguera araripensis

Anhanguera araripensis Temporal range: Albian
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	†Pterosauria
Suborder:	†Pterodactyloidea
Family:	†Anhangueridae
Genus:	†Anhanguera
Species:	†A. araripensis
Binomial name
Anhanguera araripensis (Wellnhofer, 1985)
Synonyms
Santanadactylus araripensis Wellnhofer, 1985 Coloborhynchus araripensis (Wellnhofer, 1985)

Anhanguera araripensis is a pterosaur species from the Albian-age Romualdo Member of the Early Cretaceous Santana Formation, of Barra do Jardim, Araripe Plateau, Ceará Province, Brazil. A. araripensis was named after the Araripe Plateau.

Description

A. araripensis was a large species originally based on BSP 1982 I 89, known as the "Munich specimen", fossil remains including a partial skull (missing the end of the jaws) and arms; the preserved skull section had no evidence of a crest. A more complete skull, catalogue number MN 4735–V, has been referred to the species and has shed light on the anatomy of the jaw tips, important in ornithocheirid classification. An additional referred specimen, known as the "St. Gallen specimen" (SAO 16494), consists of a nearly complete skull.

Using the referred specimens as a guide, A. araripensis has been described as similar in skull anatomy to species referred both to Anhanguera and Coloborhynchus, and the species is placed in either of these genera by various researchers. Like species referred to Coloborhynchus, the snout tip was blunt and bore two forward-projecting teeth that emerged higher on the jaw than the rest of the tooth row. As in most other ornithocheirids, the species bore a large, rounded crest at the tip of the jaws. Like Coloborhynchus species and unlike the type species of Anhanguera, the crest emerged from the very tip of the blunted jaws, rather than further back on the jaw. However, unlike Coloborhynchus, A. araripensis lacked a dent or depression in the blunted jaw tip, and the teeth appear to have been smaller and more uniform in size.^[1]

History and classification

In 1985, Peter Wellnhofer, a German paleontologist who has written numerous scientific publications on pterosaurs, named the species and classified it in the genus Santanadactylus as S. araripensis.^[2] Over the years, the species has been reclassified several times, and the classification is still contentious. In 1989, Chris Bennett suggested that S. araripensis was not closely related to Santanadactylus, but was instead a pteranodontid.^[3] Kellner agreed that it was not a member of the genus Santanadactylus, but in 1990 reclassified S. araripensis in the genus Anhanguera as A. araripensis, a classification which was followed by Wang and colleagues in 2008 and Andres et al. in 2014, though Veldmeijer (2003) included it instead in the genus Coloborhynchus.^[4]

References