Abstract
Despite being known from every continent, the geological record of pterosaurs, the first group of vertebrates to develop powered flight, is very uneven, with only a few deposits accounting for the vast majority of specimens and almost half of the taxonomic diversity. Among the regions that stand out for the greatest gaps of knowledge regarding these flying reptiles, is the Afro-Arabian continent, which has yielded only a small number of very fragmentary and incomplete materials. Here we fill part of that gap and report on the most complete pterosaur recovered from this continent, more specifically from the Late Cretaceous (~95 mya) Hjoûla Lagerstätte of Lebanon. This deposit is known since the Middle Ages for the exquisitely preserved fishes and invertebrates, but not for tetrapods, which are exceedingly rare. Mimodactylus libanensis gen. et sp. nov. differs from the other Afro-Arabian pterosaur species named to date and is closely related to the Chinese species Haopterus gracilis, forming a new clade of derived toothed pterosaurs. Mimodactylidae clade nov. groups species that are related to Istiodactylidae, jointly designated as Istiodactyliformes (clade nov.). Istiodactyliforms were previously documented only in Early Cretaceous sites from Europe and Asia, with Mimodactylus libanensis the first record in Gondwana.
Highlights
Concerning Mesozoic vertebrate palaeontology, the Afro-Arabian continent is still veiled in mystery
Despite the incompleteness of the two other pterosaur specimens described from the upper Cenomanian of Lebanon, both of which lack cranial elements, those specimens can clearly be distinguished from Mimodactylus
The only complete bones of the ornithocheiroid MSNM V 38818 are the wing metacarpal and the radius + ulna, whose proportions differ from those of Mimodactylus showing that the latter has a proportionally longer forearm
Summary
Concerning Mesozoic vertebrate palaeontology, the Afro-Arabian continent is still veiled in mystery. Except for South Africa, where systematic studies, mainly in Triassic and Lower Jurassic continental deposits have provided a comparatively diverse vertebrate fauna[1], the information about the biota that lived during most of the Mesozoic Era in this region is extremely limited. This is true for pterosaurs, an extinct group of flying reptiles that includes the major powered flying vertebrates for almost 160 mya[2,3]. The specimen described here (Fig. 2) is the first complete and articulated skeleton including the skull and lower jaw from the Afro-Arabian continent providing new insights on the diversity and potential palaeoecology of ornithocheiroids
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