A terminal Cretaceous giant pterosaur from the French Pyrenees

Abstract

A very large pterosaur cervical vertebra is described from the Upper Maastrichtian deposits of Mérigon, in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. It resembles the vertebrae of Quetzalcoatlus, from the Maastrichtian of Texas, more than those of Arambourgiania, from the Maastrichtian of Jordan. The estimated wing span of the Mérigon pterosaur is close to 9 m, which makes it one of the largest known flying creatures. Giant pterosaurs still had a wide geographical distribution at the end of Maastrichtian time, which is not suggestive of a declining group, although it is difficult to obtain an accurate estimate of taxonomic diversity of terminal Cretaceous pterosaurs on the basis of available data.

A Medium-Sized Robust-Necked Azhdarchid Pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea: Azhdarchidae) from the Maastrichtian of Pui (Haţeg Basin, Transylvania, Romania)

“…Moreover, in the latest Cretaceous deposits of Romania, pterosaur fossils belonging to medium or small size classes are actually more abundant than are very large or giant ones, with the latter comprising less than 30% of the sample of more than 50 confidently identified specimens (Vremir et al, 2011;Dyke et al, in prep.). We subsequently question whether the increasing rarity of smaller pterosaurs throughout the Cretaceous is actually a taphonomic effect caused by an apparent increase in the terrestrialization of pterosaur faunas (Buffetaut et al, 1997;Butler et al, 2013;Benson et al, 2014). If true, this taphonomic artifact may imply the existence of many small pterosaur species in habitats usually not conducive to fossilization of their thinwalled bones.…”

A new rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Upper Jurassic of Xinjiang, China, and the phylogenetic relationships of basal pterosaurs

“…However, no homology statement has been made with respect to the pair of distinct processes ventrolateral to the posterior condyle in ornithocheiroid and ctenochasmatid pterodactyloids, most often termed postexapophyses (Williston, 1897) and at times, 'exapophyses' (Williston, 1897;Eaton, 1910;Bennett, 1989;Buffetaut et al, 1997;Company et al, 1999;Henderson and Peterson, 2006;Witton and Naish, 2008), or processus ventrolaterales (Frey and Martill, 1996). These processes were originally described by Owen (1859) as short obtuse processes, thick diverging apophyses, rudimentary processes, and transverse processes in Cambridge Greensand pterosaurs, before they were named postexapophyses by Williston (1897).…”

A new giant pterosaur with a robust skull from the latest Cretaceous of Romania

“…The giant azhdarchids of the terminal Cretaceous, with wing spans reaching or exceeding 10 m, were the largest known flying creatures. Specimens from the Maastrichtian of North America (Lawson 1975;Langston 1981), western Asia (Arambourg 1959;Martill et al 1998) and Europe (Buffetaut et al 1997) are usually fragmentary, consisting mainly of cervical vertebrae and limb bones. Relatively complete skull material was hitherto known only in Quetzalcoatlus sp.…”