Lonchodraco, Rodrigues & Kellner, 2013

Rodrigues, Taissa & Kellner, Alexander Wilhelm Armin, 2013, Taxonomic review of the Ornithocheirus complex (Pterosauria) from the Cretaceous of England, ZooKeys 308, pp. 1-112 : 14-15

Lonchodraco gen. n.

Etymology.

Derived from the Greek lonchos, meaning lance, and Latin draco, meaning dragon.

Type species.

Pterodactylus giganteus Bowerbank, 1846.

Included species.

Lonchodraco giganteus , Lonchodraco machaerorhynchus , and Lonchodraco(?) microdon .

Recorded temporal range.

Albian to Cenomanian / Turonian.

Recorded stratigraphic range.

Cambridge Greensand and Chalk Formation, England.

Diagnosis.

Pterodactyloid pterosaur with the following combination of characters that distinguishes it from other members of the clade (autapomorphies are marked with an asterisk): comparatively small alveoli (up to 4 mm in diameter) in the anterior portions of the upper and lower jaws; alveoli of the anterior portions of the upper and lower jaws without significant variation in size; alveoli placed in an elevation in relation to the palate and to the dorsal margin of the mandible*; deep palatal ridge; mandibular crest present; spacing between alveoli roughly equivalent to their diameters (modified from Unwin 2001).

Remarks.

Hooley (1914) created the genus Lonchodectes , to which he assigned nine species. Six of them were listed in alphabetical order: Lonchodectes compressirostris , Lonchodectes machaeorhynchus [sic] , Lonchodectes microdon , Lonchodectes oweni , Lonchodectes scaphorhynchus and Lonchodectes tenuirostris . Other three were cited latter and referred to the genus, still in the same publication: Lonchodectes daviesii , Lonchodectes giganteus and Lonchodectes sagittirostris ( Hooley 1914). There was no designation of a type species.

Latter workers did not accept Lonchodectes as a valid genus. Kuhn (1967) and Wellnhofer (1978) considered it synonymous with Ornithocheirus . Kuhn (1967: 46) designated Lonchodectes compressirostris as the type species of the genus, using the term “Genotypus” (see above). This is a valid subsequent designation under Article 69 of ICZN. Unwin (2001), while reviewing the Cambridge Greensand pterosaurs, re-instated the genus and concluded that, of the nine species referred by Hooley (1914), only five were valid: Lonchodectes compressirostris , Lonchodectes machaerorhynchus , Lonchodectes microdon , Lonchodectes giganteus and Lonchodectes sagittirostris . He also added another species to the genus, Lonchodectes platystomus , which Hooley (1914) had placed in the genus Amblydectes .

In the present work, Lonchodectes compressirostris is considered a nomen dubium (see below) and, therefore,a new genus, Lonchodraco , is here erected to include three of the species previously referred to Lonchodectes : Lonchodraco giganteus , Lonchodraco machaerorhynchus , and Lonchodraco(?) microdon .