Bakonydraco

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Bakonydraco
Fossil range: Late Cretaceous

Extinct (fossil)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Order:	Pterosauria
Suborder:	Pterodactyloidea
Family:	Azhdarchidae
Genus:	Bakonydraco

Binomial name

Bakonydraco galaczi
Ősi, Weishampel, and Jianu, 2005

Bakonydraco (meaning "Bakony dragon") is a genus of azhdarchid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Santonian-age Upper Cretaceous Csehbánya Formation of the Bakony Mountains, Iharkút, Veszprém, western Hungary. The species name galaczi honors Professor András Galácz, who helped the authors in the Iharkút Research Program. The genus is based on MTM Gyn/3, a nearly complete lower jaw. Also assigned to it are portions from another jaw's symphysis (where the two halves of the jaw meet); azhdarchid wing bones and neck vertebrae from the same area may also belong to it.^[1]

The lower jaw is toothless and the two halves are fused for about half of the overall length of the jaw, forming a long, pointed section that is compressed side-to-side and also expanded vertically, giving it a somewhat spearhead- or arrowhead-like shape from the side. The jaw of MTM Gyn/3 is 29 centimeters long (11.4 inches), and the wingspan of the genus is estimated to be 3.5 to 4 meters (11.5 to 13.1 feet), which is medium-sized for a pterosaur. Because the jaw is relatively taller than other azhdarchids, and reminiscent of Tapejara, Bakonydraco may have fed differently than other azdarchids. It could have been a piscivore on small fish, or a frugivore. The discovery of this genus establishes the presence of azhdarchids in the Late Cretaceous of Hungary, suggesting that there as elsewhere they had become the dominant pterosaurs.^[1]

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Ösi, Attila; Weishampel, David B.; and Jianu, Coralia M. (2005). "First evidence of azhdarchid pterosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of Hungary". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 50 (4): 777-787. Retrieved on 2007-03-04.