Archaeopterodactyloidea

Archaeopterodactyloidea Temporal range: Late Jurassic - Early Cretaceous, 152–105Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Cast of the sub-adult type specimen of Pterodactylus antiquus, an archaeopterodactyloid.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	†Pterosauria
Clade:	†Caelidracones
Suborder:	†Pterodactyloidea
Infraorder:	†Archaeopterodactyloidea Kellner, 1996
Subgroups
†Germanodactylidae †Euctenochasmatia

Archaeopterodactyloidea (meaning "ancient Pterodactyloidea") is an extinct clade of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the middle Late Jurassic to the latest Early Cretaceous (Kimmeridgian to Albian stages) of Africa, Asia and Europe.^[1] It was named by Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in 1996 as the group that contains Germanodactylus, Pterodactylus, the Ctenochasmatidae and the Gallodactylidae. In 2003, Kellner defined the clade as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of Pterodactylus, Ctenochasma and Gallodactylus and all its descendants. Although phylogenetic analyses that based on David Unwin's 2003 analysis don't recover monophyletic Archaeopterodactyloidea, phylogenetic analyses that based on Kellner's analyses, or the analyses of Brian Andres (2008, 2010, in press) recover monophyletic Archaeopterodactyloidea at the base of the Pterodactyloidea.^[2]

Classification

Below is a cladogram showing the results of a phylogenetic analysis presented by Andres & Myers, 2013.^[3] For alternate cladograms, see List of pterosaur classifications.

References