Originating from a single wing bone discovered in the Early Cretaceous Santana Formation of Brazil, the huge genus Araripedactylus was a pterodactyloid pterosaur. Peter Wellnhofer named the genus in 1977, believing he was identifying the first pterosaur genus from Brazil, not realizing Price had published the name Araripesaurus in 1971. With daktylos, which means "finger" in Greek, and Pterodactylus as a typical element in pterosaur names, the genus name alludes to the Araripe Plateau. The specific name Araripedactylus dehmi honors German paleontologist Richard Dehm, a professor at the Munich Institute who collected the sole known specimen in 1975. Araripedactylus dehmi is the type species. A single phalanx, the first of the right wing finger, encased in an elongated chalk nodule makes up the holotype, BSP 1975 I 166. Its distal end was broken off when the nodule was cracked open to disclose the fossil. The example is that of a mature person. The phalanx is 55 centimeters long. At 3 to 5 meters (9.8 to 16.4 feet), its bone walls are characterized by Wellnhofer as extraordinarily thick for a pterosaur. Wellnhofer classified Araripedactylus as a member of the Pterodactyloidea in general due to the absence of additional material. In 2000, Alexander Kellner surmised that the species probably belonged to Ornithocheiroidea (sensu Kellner) based on its origin. He also noted that it was difficult to differentiate the phalanx from other giant pterosaurs from the formation, including Tropeognathus or Anhanguera. He was unable to verify either the extraordinary bone wall thickness or any other genus-specific autapomorphy. Wellnhofer estimated Araripedactylus' wingspan to be at least 4.8 meters (15.75 feet), and another source put that figure at 5 meters (16.5 feet).
Araripedactylus reconstruction.
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