Jidapterus is a genus of chaoyangopterid pterosaur from the Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Chaoyang, Liaoning, China. The genus was in 2003 named by Dong Zhiming, Sun Yue-Wu and Wu Shao-Yuan. The type species is Jidapterus edentus. The genus name is derived from Jílín Dàxué or "Jilin University" and a Latinized Greek pteron, "wing". The specific name means "toothless" in Latin.
Description
Jidapterus is based on
holotype CAD-01, a nearly complete skeleton with partial skull. The skull is toothless and relatively long, with a straight and very pointed beak, and a large hole where the antorbital fenestra is joined with the
. The eye sockets are small, and there is no crest along the lower jaw as seen in
Ornithocheirus, although a short projection was present at the back of the skull. The
wingspan of this individual was estimated to be .
Classification
The classification of
Jidapterus has been unstable; the original authors did not assign it to a group.
Some of the original authors later suggested it was a more basal azhdarchoid,
whereas another group suggested it was closer to
Pteranodon and possibly the same genus as
Chaoyangopterus.
David Unwin assigned it to
Tapejaridae without comment in
The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time,
[Unwin, D.M. (2006). The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time. Pi Press:New York, p. 273. .] but later, in a collaboration with Lü, agreed that it belonged to another azhdarchoid group and was a close relative of
Chaoyangopterus, placing both in the new family Chaoyangopteridae.
[Lü, J., Unwin, D.M., Xu, L., and Zhang, X. (2008). "A new azhdarchoid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China and its implications for pterosaur phylogeny and evolution." Naturwissenschaften] A redescription of the genus in 2017 corroborated these results, and also presented evidence distinguishing it from
Chaoyangopterus.
Below are two showing the phylogenetic placement of Jidapterus within the Azhdarchoidea. The one on the left is a topology by Felipe Pinheiro and colleagues in 2011. In their phylogenetic analysis, they recovered Jidapterus within the family Tapejaridae, more specifically within a subfamily called Chaoyangopterinae, sister taxon to both Chaoyangopterus and Shenzhoupterus.
Topology 1: Pinheiro and colleagues (2011).
Topology 2: Kellner and colleagues (2019).
See also
-
List of pterosaur genera
-
Timeline of pterosaur research
External links
