Guidraco, new pterosaur from Early Cretaceous of China

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com

A new online paper:

Xiaolin Wang, Alexander W. A. Kellner, Shunxing Jiang and Xin Cheng (2012)
New toothed flying reptile from Asia: close similarities between early
Cretaceous pterosaur faunas from China and Brazil.
Naturwissenschaften (advance online publication)
DOI: 10.1007/s00114-012-0889-1
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r36581j7611g8717/



Despite the great increase in pterosaur diversity in the last decades,
particularly due to discoveries made in western Liaoning (China), very
little is known regarding pterosaur biogeography. Here, we present the
description of a new pterosaur from the Jiufotang Formation that adds
significantly to our knowledge of pterosaur distribution and enhances
the diversity of cranial anatomy found in those volant creatures.
Guidraco venator gen. et sp. nov. has an unusual upward-directed
frontal crest and large rostral teeth, some of which surpass the
margins of the skull and lower jaw when occluded. The new species is
closely related to a rare taxon from the Brazilian Crato Formation,
posing an interesting paleobiogeographic problem and supporting the
hypothesis that at least some early Cretaceous pterosaur clades, such
as the Tapejaridae and the Anhangueridae, might have originated in
Asia. The association of the new specimen with coprolites and the
cranial morphology suggest that G. venator preyed on fish.