Royal Society Open Science (Jan 2017)

Earliest filter-feeding pterosaur from the Jurassic of China and ecological evolution of Pterodactyloidea

  • Chang-Fu Zhou,
  • Ke-Qin Gao,
  • Hongyu Yi,
  • Jinzhuang Xue,
  • Quanguo Li,
  • Richard C. Fox

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160672
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 2

Abstract

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Pterosaurs were a unique clade of flying reptiles that were contemporaries of dinosaurs in Mesozoic ecosystems. The Pterodactyloidea as the most species-diverse group of pterosaurs dominated the sky during Cretaceous time, but earlier phases of their evolution remain poorly known. Here, we describe a 160 Ma filter-feeding pterosaur from western Liaoning, China, representing the geologically oldest record of the Ctenochasmatidae, a group of exclusive filter feeders characterized by an elongated snout and numerous fine teeth. The new pterosaur took the lead of a major ecological transition in pterosaur evolution from fish-catching to filter-feeding adaptation, prior to the Tithonian (145–152 Ma) diversification of the Ctenochasmatidae. Our research shows that the rise of ctenochasmatid pterosaurs was followed by the burst of eco-morphological divergence of other pterodactyloid clades, which involved a wide range of feeding adaptations that considerably altered the terrestrial ecosystems of the Cretaceous world.

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