Changchengopterus

{{short description|Genus of monofenestratan pterosaur from the Late Jurassic}}

{{Automatic taxobox

| name = Changchengopterus

| taxon = Changchengopterus

| fossil_range = Late Jurassic,
{{fossilrange|163}}

| type_species = {{extinct}}Changchengopterus pani

| type_species_authority = Lü, 2009

| authority = Lü, 2009

}}

Changchengopterus is a genus of non-pterodactyloid pterosaur from Qinglong County in Hebei Province, China.

Discovery and naming

The fossil specimen, holotype CYGB-0036, of the type and only species, Changchengopterus pani, was found in the Tiaojishan Formation dating from the Callovian and named and described by Lü Junchang in 2009. The generic name combines the Changcheng, the Great Wall of China, with a Latinised Greek pteron, "wing". The specific name honours Pan Lijun, who collected the fossil and donated it to science. The holotype, a skeleton lacking the skull, represents a young juvenile, of which the combined paired wing elements measure just seventeen centimetres.Lü, J. (2009). "A new non-pterodactyloid pterosaur from Qinglong County, Hebei Province of China." Acta Geologica Sinica (English Edition), 83(2): 189-199. {{doi|10.1111/j.1755-6724.2009.00062.x}}. In 2011, a second specimen was described, PMOL-AP00010, acquired in 2008 by the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning. It consists of a skeleton with lower jaws, of an adult individual.Chang-Fu Zhou and Rainer R. Schoch, 2011, "New material of the non-pterodactyloid pterosaur Changchengopterus pani LÜ, 2009 from the Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of western Liaoning", Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen 260: 265-275

The wingspan of the referred specimen was in 2011 estimated at seventy centimetres. Already in 2010, some estimates for the genus had risen to {{convert|475|mm|in}}.{{Cite journal|author=Wang, Xiaolin|author2=Kellner, Alexander W.A.|author3=Jiang, Shunxing|author4=Cheng, Xin|author5=Meng, Xi|author6=Rodrigues, Taissa|name-list-style=amp|year=2010|title=New long-tailed pterosaurs (Wukongopteridae) from western Liaoning, China|url=http://www.scielo.br/pdf/aabc/v82n4/24.pdf|journal=Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências|volume=82|issue=4|pages=1045–1062|doi=10.1590/S0001-37652010000400024|pmid=21152776|doi-access=free}}

Classification

In his original description, Lü's phylogenetic analysis concluded that Changchengopterus was a primitive pterosaur closely related to the earlier European pterosaur Dorygnathus, and he placed it in Rhamphorhynchidae. However, a subsequent study by Wang and colleagues (2010) noted some similarities with the wukongopterids, and they tentatively placed it in that family. Andres & Myers (2013) found it to be outside Wukongopteridae and slightly more closely related to the pterodactyloids within the larger group Monofenestrata.{{Cite journal | last1 = Andres | first1 = B. | last2 = Myers | first2 = T. S. | doi = 10.1017/S1755691013000303 | title = Lone Star Pterosaurs | journal = Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh | volume = 103 | issue = 3–4 | pages = 383–398 | year = 2013 }} In 2017, Changchengopterus was recovered outside Monofenestrata.{{cite journal | last1 = Wang | first1 = X. | last2 = Jiang | first2 = S. | last3 = Zhang | first3 = J. | last4 = Cheng | first4 = X. | last5 = Yu | first5 = X. | last6 = Li | first6 = Y. | last7 = Wei | first7 = G. | last8 = Wang | first8 = X. | title = New evidence from China for the nature of the pterosaur evolutionary transition | journal = Scientific Reports | volume = 7 | page = 42763 | date = 2017 | doi = 10.1038/srep42763 | pmid = 28202936 | pmc = 5311862 }} Contrastingly, a 2024 paper by David Hone and colleagues describing the transitional taxon Skiphosoura included Changchengopterus within Pterodactyliformes and found primitive monofenestratans to represent an evolutionary grade leading towards Pterodactyloidea, rather than a distinct darwinopteran or wukongopterid grouping. A cladogram of their results is shown below:{{Cite journal |last=Hone |first=David W. E. |last2=Fitch |first2=Adam |last3=Selzer |first3=Stefan |last4=Lauer |first4=René |last5=Lauer |first5=Bruce |date=2024-11-18 |title=A new and large monofenestratan reveals the evolutionary transition to the pterodactyloid pterosaurs |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224013770 |journal=Current Biology |language=en |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.023 |issn=0960-9822 |doi-access=free}}