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Nyctosauridae (meaning "night lizards" or "bat lizards") is a family of specialized soaring of the late Cretaceous Period of North America, Africa, and possibly other continents including South America. It was named in 1889 by Henry Alleyne Nicholson and Richard Lydekker.Nicholson, H.A. and Lydekker, R. (1889). A manual of palaeontology for the use of students: with a general introduction on the principles of palæontology, Volume II. Blackwood, 1889.
Nyctosaurids are characterized by their lack of all but the wing finger. In most pterosaurs, the hand has four fingers, with the fourth elongated to support the wing, and the remaining three are usually small, clawed, and used in walking or climbing. The lack of functional fingers in nyctosaurids may suggest that they spent almost all of their time in the air, rarely walking on the ground. Nyctosaurids also possessed a distinctively enlarged crest for muscle attachment on their upper arm bone, or humerus, the deltopectoral crest, hatchet shaped like in the unrelated rhamphorhynchids.Wilton, Mark P. (2013). Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy. Princeton University Press. , Nyctosaurids are generally characterized as specialized, pelagic soarers like frigatebirds; however, the Alcione species appear to have had shorter wings and possibly have been divers like some modern piscivorous birds.
Nyctosaurids have occasionally been included in the similar family Pteranodontidae, though researchers including Christopher Bennett and Alexander Kellner have both concluded that they belonged to a separate lineage.Bennett, S. C. (1994). "Taxonomy and systematics of the Late Cretaceous pterosaur Pteranodon (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea)", Occasional Papers of the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 169: 1-70 Analyses by David Unwin did indicate a close relationship between Pteranodon and Nyctosaurus, though he used the name Pteranodontia for the clade containing both genera. Both opinions were published before the discovery of the second definitively known nyctosaurid, Muzquizopteryx, in 2006.Frey, E., Buchy, M.-C., Stinnesbeck, W., González, A. G. & di Stefano, A. (2006). " Muzquizopteryx coahuilensis n.g., n. sp., a nyctosaurid pterosaur with soft tissue preservation from the Coniacian (Late Cretaceous) of northeast Mexico (Coahuila)." Oryctos, 6: 19-39.
Most nyctosaurid fossils have been found in formations dating to the late Cretaceous period of the western United States and Mexico. Nyctosaurus dates from 85-84.5 million years ago, in the Niobrara Formation of Kansas. Muzquizopteryx is the oldest nyctosaurid known from definitive remains, dating to the Turonian-Coniacian boundary in Coahuila.Schmidt, H., Buchy, M.-C., Vega, F.J., Smith, K.T., Ifrim, C., Frey, E., Keller, G., Rindfleisch, A., González, A.H.G., Lionel Cavin, L. and Stinnesbeck, W. (2006). " A new lithographic limestone deposit in the Upper Cretaceous Austin Group at El Rosario, county of Múzquiz, Coahuila, northeastern Mexico ." Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geológicas, 22(3): 401-418. A possible nyctosaurid specimen from Europe has been reclassified as an azhdarchoid.
Before the late 2010s, three forms were known from the Maastrichtian: a single potentially nyctosaurid humerus (upper arm bone) from Mexico, "Nyctosaurus" lamegoi from Brazil,Price, L. I. 1953. A presença de Pterosáuria no Cretáceo superior do Estada da Paraiba. Divisão de Geologia e Mineralogia Notas Preliminares e Estudos, 71, 1-10.Wilton, Mark P. (2013). Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy. Princeton University Press. , and a nyctosaurid complete wing-phalanx1, a claw (digit phalanx manus), and a partial ulna from Jordan. The Jordan specimen is of particular interest as it is the first record of a nyctosaurid from the Old World and represents the latest record of the family (uppermost Maastrichtian).Kaddumi H. F. 2009. On the remains of the first pterosaur (Ornithocheiroidea:Nyctosauridae) from the Muwaqqar Chalk Marl Formation of Harrana. In: Fossils of the Harrana Fauna and the Adjacent Areas. Publications of the Eternal River Museum of Natural History, Amman, pp 241-247. Beginning in 2016, Nicholas Longrich, David Martill, and Brian Andres presented evidence of several nyctosaurid and pteranodontid species from the latest Maastrichtian age of north Africa, suggesting that these lineages went through an evolutionary radiation in the Old World shortly before the K-Pg extinction event. Three of these pterosaurs were named in 2018, and were called Alcione elainus, Barbaridactylus, and Simurghia.
In 2024, Alcione, Simurghia, and Epapatelo were referred to as members of Nyctosauridae based on phylogenetic analysis, and "N." lamegoi was included as a species of Simurghia.
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