Arambourgiania

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Arambourgiania
Fossil range: Late Cretaceous

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Order:	Pterosauria
Suborder:	Pterodactyloidea
Family:	Azhdarchidae
Genus:	Arambourgiania Nessov et al., 1987

Species

A. philadelphiae (Arambourg, 1959) (type)

Synonyms

Titanopteryx Arambourg, 1959 (preoccupied)

Arambourgiania is a pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Jordan. With a wingspan of 12 m (40 ft) it was one of the largest members of this group.

A 61 cm (2 ft) long Arambourginia bone was found in Jordan in 1943 and sent to Paris in the 1950s, where it was examined by Camille Arambourg (after whom it was named). It was thought to have been a wing bone, but subsequently the bone was lost. In 1995, paleontologists David Martill and Dino Frey rediscovered it in a Jordanian storage. Shortly before that, study of the plaster cast of the bone revealed that it was actually a single neck vertebra that was originally 75 cm (2 ft 6 in) long. The total length of the neck was estimated at 2 m (6 ft 8 in).

The original name for the genus, Titanopteryx given by Arambourg was already used for an insect so it was reclassified as Arambourgiania by Nessov et al. in 1987.

[edit] References

Arambourg, C. (1959). "Titanopteryx philadelphiae nov. gen., nov. sp. Ptérosaurien géant." Notes Mém. Moyen-Orient, 7: 229–234.
Frey, E. & Martill, D.M. (1996). "A reappraisal of Arambourgiania (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea): One of the world's largest flying animals." N.Jb.Geol.Paläont.Abh., 199(2): 221-247.
Martill, D.M., E. Frey, R.M. Sadaqah & H.N. Khoury (1998). "Discovery of the holotype of the giant pterosaur Titanopteryx philadelphiae Arambourg 1959, and the status of Arambourgiania and Quetzalcoatlus." Neues Jarhbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie, Abh. 207(1): 57-76.
Nessov, L.A., Kanznyshkina, L.F., and Cherepanov, G.O. (1987). "Dinosaurs, crocodiles and other archosaurs from the Late mesozoic of central Asia and their place in ecosystems." Abstracts of the 33rd session of the All-Union Palaeontological Society, Leningrad, pp. 46-47. [In Russian].
Steel, L., D.M. Martill., J. Kirk, A. Anders, R.F. Loveridge, E. Frey, and J.G. Martin (1997). "Arambourgiania philadelphiae: giant wings in small halls." The Geological Curator, 6(8): 305-313.