Pterodactylus, unreported specimen described from French museum

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bscreisler@gmail.com


A new online paper:



Romain Vullo, Jean-François Heil & Michèle Dunand (2012)
On a 19th Century Pterodactylus (Pterosauria) specimen held in the
Natural History Museum of La Rochelle, France.
Annales de Paléontologie (advance online publication)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.annpal.2011.11.004
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0753396911000796


A new specimen of the pterosaur Pterodactylus, purchased in the second
half of the 19th Century by the Natural History Museum of La Rochelle
and still held in that institution, is described. This previously
unreported and almost complete specimen is one of the very few
original pterosaur fossils from Solnhofen present in the French
historical palaeontological collections. It corresponds to a large
adult individual displaying some interesting anatomical details as
well as a possible healed fracture of the tibia.