NEW PTERODACTYLUS

[<darren.naish@port.ac.uk>]

Ben Creisler reproduced an article that discusses the new _Pterodactylus_ specimen with soft tissues (thanks Ben). Have seen excellent photos of this specimen and just want to say that it also has some hard-tissue stuff not reported for this genus before: the teeth are phylloform, rather than simply conical.

Incidentally this is not the same as the _P. kochi_ specimen that preserves excellent hair-like integumentary structures on the back of the neck described by Frey and Martill (1998), nor should it be confused with the Brazilian specimen (currently at Karlsruhe) that also preserves a scaly foot-pad and dactylopatagia. The latter specimen is remarkably long-legged and has been suggested to be an azhdarchid (it was integral to Dino Frey's 'bottom decker' model (see Frey et al. 2000)). Dave Peters thinks it's something else entirely but I don't want to steal his proverbial thunder.

Incidentally Frey's first name is Eberhard, not Eberhart (though he's better known as 'Dino': not a name he was born with). For those that don't know he is pretty prominent here in European vert palaeontology and a leading advocate of the Konstruktion-morphologie school: this has its adherants and detractors and is often at odds with the march of cladism. Konstruktion-morphologists approach organisms as mechanical units to which engineering principles can be applied (cue Ralph and archaic arthropods...). In a vain attempt to cover my back, let me say that this is where we get pneumatically-supported sauropod necks, inflexibly bound cervical ribs and other propositions from.

Frey, E. and Martill, D. M. 1998. Soft tissue preservation in a specimen of _Pterodactylus kochi_ (Wagner) from the Upper Jurassic of Germany. _Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen_ 210, 421-441.

Frey, E., Buchy, M.-C. and Martill, D. M. 2000. Pterosaurs, flying machines and the first living bottom deckers in the world. _In_ 48th SVPCA Abstracts. University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth.

DARREN NAISH
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
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