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Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon

Faxinalipterus minimus was originally described as a purported pterosaur from the Late Triassic (early Norian) Caturrita Formation of southern Brazil. Its holotype comprises fragmentary postcranial elements, whereas a partial maxilla was referred to the species. The assignment of Faxinalipterus mini...

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Autores principales: Kellner, Alexander W.A., Holgado, Borja, Grillo, Orlando, Pretto, Flávio Augusto, Kerber, Leonardo, Pinheiro, Felipe Lima, Soares, Marina Bento, Schultz, Cesar Leandro, Lopes, Ricardo Tadeu, Araújo, Olga, Müller, Rodrigo Temp
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9074864/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35529502
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13276
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author Kellner, Alexander W.A.
Holgado, Borja
Grillo, Orlando
Pretto, Flávio Augusto
Kerber, Leonardo
Pinheiro, Felipe Lima
Soares, Marina Bento
Schultz, Cesar Leandro
Lopes, Ricardo Tadeu
Araújo, Olga
Müller, Rodrigo Temp
author_facet Kellner, Alexander W.A.
Holgado, Borja
Grillo, Orlando
Pretto, Flávio Augusto
Kerber, Leonardo
Pinheiro, Felipe Lima
Soares, Marina Bento
Schultz, Cesar Leandro
Lopes, Ricardo Tadeu
Araújo, Olga
Müller, Rodrigo Temp
author_sort Kellner, Alexander W.A.
collection PubMed
description Faxinalipterus minimus was originally described as a purported pterosaur from the Late Triassic (early Norian) Caturrita Formation of southern Brazil. Its holotype comprises fragmentary postcranial elements, whereas a partial maxilla was referred to the species. The assignment of Faxinalipterus minimus to Pterosauria has been questioned by some studies, but the specimen has never been accessed in detail after its original description. Here we provide a reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus after additional mechanical preparation of the holotype. Our interpretations on the identity of several bones differ from those of the original description, and we found no support favoring pterosaur affinities for the taxon. The maxilla previously referred to Faxinalipterus minimus is disassociated from this taxon and referred to a new putative pterosauromorph described here from a partial skull and fragmentary postcranial elements. Maehary bonapartei gen. et sp. nov. comes from the same fossiliferous site that yielded Faxinalipterus minimus, but the lack of overlapping bones hampers comparisons between the two taxa. Our phylogenetic analysis places Faxinalipterus minimus within Lagerpetidae and Maehary bonapartei gen. et sp. nov. as the earliest-diverging member of Pterosauromorpha. Furthermore, the peculiar morphology of the new taxon reveals a new dental morphotype for archosaurs, characterized by conical, unserrated crowns, with a pair of apicobasally oriented grooves. These two enigmatic archosaurs expand our knowledge on the Caturrita Formation fauna and reinforce the importance of its beds on the understanding of Late Triassic ecosystems.
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spelling pubmed-90748642022-05-07 Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon Kellner, Alexander W.A. Holgado, Borja Grillo, Orlando Pretto, Flávio Augusto Kerber, Leonardo Pinheiro, Felipe Lima Soares, Marina Bento Schultz, Cesar Leandro Lopes, Ricardo Tadeu Araújo, Olga Müller, Rodrigo Temp PeerJ Evolutionary Studies Faxinalipterus minimus was originally described as a purported pterosaur from the Late Triassic (early Norian) Caturrita Formation of southern Brazil. Its holotype comprises fragmentary postcranial elements, whereas a partial maxilla was referred to the species. The assignment of Faxinalipterus minimus to Pterosauria has been questioned by some studies, but the specimen has never been accessed in detail after its original description. Here we provide a reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus after additional mechanical preparation of the holotype. Our interpretations on the identity of several bones differ from those of the original description, and we found no support favoring pterosaur affinities for the taxon. The maxilla previously referred to Faxinalipterus minimus is disassociated from this taxon and referred to a new putative pterosauromorph described here from a partial skull and fragmentary postcranial elements. Maehary bonapartei gen. et sp. nov. comes from the same fossiliferous site that yielded Faxinalipterus minimus, but the lack of overlapping bones hampers comparisons between the two taxa. Our phylogenetic analysis places Faxinalipterus minimus within Lagerpetidae and Maehary bonapartei gen. et sp. nov. as the earliest-diverging member of Pterosauromorpha. Furthermore, the peculiar morphology of the new taxon reveals a new dental morphotype for archosaurs, characterized by conical, unserrated crowns, with a pair of apicobasally oriented grooves. These two enigmatic archosaurs expand our knowledge on the Caturrita Formation fauna and reinforce the importance of its beds on the understanding of Late Triassic ecosystems. PeerJ Inc. 2022-05-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9074864/ /pubmed/35529502 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13276 Text en ©2022 Kellner et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Evolutionary Studies
Kellner, Alexander W.A.
Holgado, Borja
Grillo, Orlando
Pretto, Flávio Augusto
Kerber, Leonardo
Pinheiro, Felipe Lima
Soares, Marina Bento
Schultz, Cesar Leandro
Lopes, Ricardo Tadeu
Araújo, Olga
Müller, Rodrigo Temp
Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon
title Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon
title_full Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon
title_fullStr Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon
title_full_unstemmed Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon
title_short Reassessment of Faxinalipterus minimus, a purported Triassic pterosaur from southern Brazil with the description of a new taxon
title_sort reassessment of faxinalipterus minimus, a purported triassic pterosaur from southern brazil with the description of a new taxon
topic Evolutionary Studies
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9074864/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35529502
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13276
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