The genus Liaoxipterus comprises pterodactyloid pterosaurs that originate from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning, China, during the Barremian-Aptian era. The Liaoxipterus brachyognathus is the type species. The Latinized Greek word pteron, which means "wing," and the finding place Liaoxi are the sources of the genus name. The word "specific name" comes from the Greek words "short" (brachys) and "jaw" (gnathos).
Description
The holotype CAR-0018, an essentially intact but crushed 161-millimeter-long mandible (fused lower jaws), serves as the basis for the genus. Its low tooth count (eleven per side) and small teeth set it apart from all other known ctenochasmatid species. There is moreover a disconnected hyoid. Liaoxipterus's jaw featured a rounded upper surface that was packed with tiny, peg-like teeth. Its teeth's form and the hyoid bone's structure, which supports the tongue muscles, indicate that it was an insect eater. It could have even been able to catch insects by sticking out its tongue like a chameleon.
Classification
Dong Zhiming and Lü Junchang initially assigned Liaoxipterus to the Ctenochasmatidae family. Lü agreed in 2015 that Wang and associates' 2006 and 2008 suggestions that it was truly an istiodactylid were correct. Lü came to the subjective junior synonym of Liaoxipterus, Nurhachius, in 2008. But according to a 2012 study by Mark Witton, these two istiodactylids were not similar to one another and—more significantly—did not form a single evolutionary tree. Witton added that in Lü's research, they likewise did not truly form a group.
Following Witton's 2012 analysis, the cladogram below shows that Istiodactylidae is composed of five taxa (the first three species mentioned are outgroup or reference taxa):
| Pterodactylus antiquus | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The topology found by Kellner et al. (2019) is shown in the cladogram below. Liaoxipterus was identified in the studies as the sister taxon of Istiodactylus in the family Istiodactylidae, and it was categorized within the more comprehensive Istiodactyliformes group.
| Istiodactyliformes |
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Reconstruction of Liaoxipterus.
Sources