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Three New Toothed Pterosaur from Kem Kem


Troodon

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Wow three more Pterosaurs from the Kem Kem and all toothed one premaxilla is similar to the English ornithocheirid Ornithocheirus simus. Currently identified as Ornithocheirus cf simus.  The other a premaxilla is referred to Coloborhynchus, bearing similarities to C. clavirostris from the Hastings Group of southern England, and C. fluviferox from the Kem Kem beds.  Identified as Coloborhynchus sp. A.  A mandibular symphysis closely resembles that of Anhanguera piscator from the Romualdo Member of the Santana Formation of BrazilIdentified as Anhanguera cf piscator 

 

In total, the Kem Kem pterosaur fauna includes at least nine species, of which three are ornithocheirids. 

 

 

Paywalled but check out the outline to see images of the jaw sections

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667119303258

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Diversity of Kem Kem pterosaurs seems to be going up quite a bit lately :) 

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52 minutes ago, The Amateur Paleontologist said:

Diversity of Kem Kem pterosaurs seems to be going up quite a bit lately :) 

Well is it or are we looking at sexual dimorphism or ontogenetic changes.   Most of these new pterosaurs are described with only a few fragments being found.    

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Wow! before 2010 there was only one officially described Pterosaur from the Kem Kem (Siroccopteryx, although researchers did know there were other taxon) and in the last 10 years there have been 7 new described species from the Kem Kem. Alanqa was first described in 2010 and then it took about 7 or 8 years for the next Pterosaur to be described (Xericeps). So basically up to six new Pterosaur species have been officially described in the last couple of years. Not to mention there is still the Tapejarid to be officially described so it is sort of the golden age of Kem Kem Pterosaur discoveries!

 

Although i do personally leave a question mark on these new Pterosaur like Troodon said, the descriptions are based on fragmented remains so it may be that one of these Pterosaur remains might belong to Siroccopteryx instead of a new species, but at this point it could just simply be wait and see. 

 

Thanks Troodon for the link!

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Topics Merged. ;) 

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On 2/19/2020 at 9:01 PM, msantix said:

Wow! before 2010 there was only one officially described Pterosaur from the Kem Kem (Siroccopteryx, although researchers did know there were other taxon) and in the last 10 years there have been 7 new described species from the Kem Kem. Alanqa was first described in 2010 and then it took about 7 or 8 years for the next Pterosaur to be described (Xericeps). So basically up to six new Pterosaur species have been officially described in the last couple of years. Not to mention there is still the Tapejarid to be officially described so it is sort of the golden age of Kem Kem Pterosaur discoveries!

 

Although i do personally leave a question mark on these new Pterosaur like Troodon said, the descriptions are based on fragmented remains so it may be that one of these Pterosaur remains might belong to Siroccopteryx instead of a new species, but at this point it could just simply be wait and see. 

 

Thanks Troodon for the link!

The holotype on which Coloborhynchus fluviferox is based is a tiny fragment of snout, so it's possible it could either come from a region of the snout for which the Siroccopteryx holotype is unknown, in which case fluviferox is a synonym of Siroccopteryx, or be a member of Hamipteridae. However, Xericeps and Apatorhamphus are azhdarchoids like Alanqa, not ornithocheiroids, and the Kem Kem specimen assigned to Tapejaridae by Wellnhofer and Buffetaut (1999) has been christened Afrotapejara zouhri by Martill et al. (2020).

 

Also bear in mind the Martill et al. don't follow Rodrigues and Kellner (2013) in rejecting referral of Pterodactylus capito (including Ornithocheirus reedi) to Coloborhynchus due to its much younger age. Averianov (2020) referred the European pterosaur species Lonchodraco machaerorhynchus (with which he synonymized L. microdon) to the Asian genus Ikrandraco, so it's possible that capito could be related to Hamipterus and Iberodactylus rather than Coloborhynchus.

 

Averianov, A.O. (2020). Taxonomy of the Lonchodectidae (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea). Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS. 324 (1): 41–55. doi:10.31610/trudyzin/2020.324.1.41.

 

David M. Martill; Roy Smith; David M. Unwin; Alexander Kao; James McPhee; Nizar Ibrahim (2020). A new tapejarid (Pterosauria, Azhdarchoidea) from the mid-Cretaceous Kem Kem beds of Takmout, southern Morocco. Cretaceous Research in press: Article 104424. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104424.

 

 Peter Wellnhofer; Eric Buffetaut (1999). Pterosaur remains from the Cretaceous of Morocco. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 73 (1–2): 133–142. doi:10.1007/BF02987987.

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12 hours ago, DD1991 said:

The holotype on which Coloborhynchus fluviferox is based is a tiny fragment of snout, so it's possible it could either come from a region of the snout for which the Siroccopteryx holotype is unknown, in which case fluviferox is a synonym of Siroccopteryx, or be a member of Hamipteridae. However, Xericeps and Apatorhamphus are azhdarchoids like Alanqa, not ornithocheiroids, and the Kem Kem specimen assigned to Tapejaridae by Wellnhofer and Buffetaut (1999) has been christened Afrotapejara zouhri by Martill et al. (2020).

 

Also bear in mind the Martill et al. don't follow Rodrigues and Kellner (2013) in rejecting referral of Pterodactylus capito (including Ornithocheirus reedi) to Coloborhynchus due to its much younger age. Averianov (2020) referred the European pterosaur species Lonchodraco machaerorhynchus (with which he synonymized L. microdon) to the Asian genus Ikrandraco, so it's possible that capito could be related to Hamipterus and Iberodactylus rather than Coloborhynchus.

 

Averianov, A.O. (2020). Taxonomy of the Lonchodectidae (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea). Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS. 324 (1): 41–55. doi:10.31610/trudyzin/2020.324.1.41.

 

David M. Martill; Roy Smith; David M. Unwin; Alexander Kao; James McPhee; Nizar Ibrahim (2020). A new tapejarid (Pterosauria, Azhdarchoidea) from the mid-Cretaceous Kem Kem beds of Takmout, southern Morocco. Cretaceous Research in press: Article 104424. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104424.

 

 Peter Wellnhofer; Eric Buffetaut (1999). Pterosaur remains from the Cretaceous of Morocco. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 73 (1–2): 133–142. doi:10.1007/BF02987987.

Thanks, I was originally referring to leaving a question mark on the three new Ornithocheiroids that were in the recent paper as i haven't read it and from what i gather they are based on small jaw fragments. Hopefully new discoveries in the future would help clear up the validity of the Ornithocheroids in the Kem Kem.

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