Talk:Anhanguera (pterosaur)

Restoration

I think this article needs a scientific restoration of Anhanguera as none of my dinosaur books feature it and I have no idea what it actually looked like as a flesh-and-blood animal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.148.242 (talk) 01:37, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to try my hand at providing a restoration 9haven't done any pterosaurs in a while!), but in the mean time the Ornithocheirus seen in Walking with dinosaurs is not a bad substitute. The reconstruction is still relatively accurate, and the two animals were nearly identical, except in crest size and tooth placement. MMartyniuk (talk) 19:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Do we have WWD images that are free from copyright? Not long ago a few of those were removed due to copyright violations. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

We have a bunch of photos of some of the puppets they used, including an Ornithocheirus head.[1] FunkMonk (talk) 05:36, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Being of "sculptures", they might well be removed from Commons `: >(. A restoration by MMartyniuk would be most welcome! We also have a picture by John Conway of Anhanguera piscator in flight:

The WWD representation of Ornithocheirus gives a fair general impression of the proportions of the body. However, all described Anhanguera specimens are an order of magnitude smaller. The lack of consensus on which species should be included in the genus makes it problematic to provide details of the build of "the animal" because there really were several.--MWAK (talk) 08:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I just meant the WWD as a suggestion for the user above to get an idea of what it looked like, not to include in the article (it depicts a different species anyway). Conway's digipainting of piscator is great (I own a print!) but it's assignment to Anhenguera rather than Coloborhynchus or something else is debatable. What we need (and what I'll probably try to do this week) is a resto of A. blittersdorffi and/or A. santanae. MWAK is right--"Anhanguera" is a currently large and ever-changing assemblage of possibly-related species, not 'an animal'. It's like Megalosaurus in the '20s. This is a case where it would be a lot less confusing to simply spin each species into its own genus and stop arguing semantics. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:42, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Hear, hear...Looking forward to the new images!--MWAK (talk) 16:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

And here's a recent animation: http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dinosaur-revolution-pterosaur-looney-tunes.html

Holtz says it's Anhanguera ;o).

Here's an animation, featuring the species "Pterosaur!" ;) MMartyniuk (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Seriously though, looked at this again and the crest begins well posterior to the upper jaw tip, which is a key feature of Anhanguera, so Holtz was spot on :) MMartyniuk (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, how does this look?

MMartyniuk (talk) 14:15, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

And here's a scale chart.

MMartyniuk (talk) 14:55, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Nice! One recommendation, though...in accordance with WP:TOL guidelines, the lead image for the taxobox ideally shows the animal facing the article. Is this an easy fix without redrawing it? Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:05, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, no problem. But we've already got a good skeletal mount in the taxobox... does anybody know what specimen that is? It looks like it could be the gracile morph of A. santanae or possibly Cearadactylus ligabuei. MMartyniuk (talk) 15:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks cool. FunkMonk (talk) 16:55, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Great paintings! :o) The taxobox skeleton is, I believe, one of the copies sold by the Museu Nacional of a reconstruction they made in the nineties, representing a sort of generalised Anhanguera and largely based on the respective A. santanae specimens but also on NSM-PV 19892 which at the time had not been named as a separate species. Hence the, with hindsight, strange combination of features (A. piscator dentition, low crest). The copy mount shows some obvious mistakes, such as forward pointing fingers and digitigrade feet.--MWAK (talk) 08:11, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Just looked up NSM-PV 19892 in Veldmeijer's thesis and it is indeed referred to C. piscator and has a relatively low crest. The image should probably be moved to Coloborhynchus or simply be removed for incorrect posture. MMartyniuk (talk) 15:22, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

That might be a bit hasty. After all, I could well be bloody wrong about the whole thing and in my experience pterosaur skeletal mounts are always sadly distorted :o). Kellner, Unwin, Veldmeijer and Fastnacht disagree about the nomenclature. We must resist the temptation to choose one of them as possessing the true understanding of the matter. That would be POV and besides, there cannot be a true understanding as scientifically there is no objective state of affairs corresponding to "belonging to a genus". And, even when Coloborhynchus is not to be deemed a nomen dubium or strictly limited to the holotype, it could still be a plesiomorphic grade.--MWAK (talk) 06:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

" there is no objective state of affairs corresponding to "belonging to a genus"." Sure there is--if a specimen belongs to the type species of a genus, it will always belong to that genus. I'd recommend only including type species of the various ornithocheirid/anhanguerid genera in the taxoboxes for this reason. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

By the way, most of those old ornithocheirid specimens are figured here (there are several pages)[2] if one looks around, so we could get images of the type specimens of several genera if those are more appropriate. It is very confusing though. FunkMonk (talk) 07:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Not ideal, but certainly better than using hybrid images. Distinguishing ornithocheirids is confusing enough without displaying mounts based on several species combined. Are those images available for wiki? MMartyniuk (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, they're all PD, from an old book written by Richard Owen himself. I'ved added some of the images to articles, and A. fittoni and A. cuvieri are figured also. FunkMonk (talk) 21:09, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Capital! But It seems I can't find the A. fittoni and A. cuvieri images...--MWAK (talk) 17:56, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

They're both referred to as Pterodactylus there, here's cuvieri[3], and here's fittoni[4] (among other things). If they're useful, I'll upload them today. FunkMonk (talk) 18:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting to see these! cuvieri at least definitely looks like an Anhanguera (crest beginning well posterior to tip of the snout). MMartyniuk (talk) 19:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Please do upload them!--MWAK (talk) 07:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Done, phew, what a mess. They really tried hard to cram as much stuff as possible into the smallest spaces. Anyone know what's going on in this plate?[5] There is mention of two species, but it is not pointed out which figure is which. May not matter, since both are dubious names, but one tip looks kind of interesting. FunkMonk (talk) 15:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts! The other plate certainly is worthy of being uploaded also! The two species, Pterodactylus giganteus and P. conirostris, are one and the same, the latter being a junior objective synonym of the former. Owen didn't like the epithet giganteus as Bowerbank had shown that a previous identification by Owen of a supposed gigantic bird really pertained to a gigantic pterosaur. Owen thereafter for a time maintained there really were no gigantic pterosaurs, let alone that one should name them thus and so he simply changed the name. Of course even at that time there were official priority rules, by the CNBA, and in the end he was forced to withdraw the synonym.--MWAK (talk) 20:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Species list

The species list for this article should be updated to reflect the fact that "Pterodactylus" cuvieri has been given its own genus, Cimoliopterus, by Rodrigues and Kellner (2013) (P. fittoni is also removed from Anhanguera by Rodrigues and Kellner, who consider it a nomen dubium even though they stress that P. fittoni is similar to Cimoliopterus in the features of the jaw). Moreover, "Cearadactylus" ligabuei is not referrable to either Anhanguera or Cearadactylus and instead may represent a distinct genus.

Rodrigues, T.; Kellner, A. (2013). "Taxonomic review of the Ornithocheirus complex (Pterosauria) from the Cretaceous of England". ZooKeys 308: 1. doi:10.3897/zookeys.308.5559. edit 68.4.28.33 (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2013 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian

New paper out with a new taxonomic framework[6], but I'm still confused about which specimens go where, hehe... FunkMonk (talk) 16:31, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

The paper deems A. santanae, A. araripensis, and A. robustus dubious, but our article currently doesn't seem to mention this. FunkMonk (talk) 02:09, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The subsection "Former species and nomina dubia" under Classification seems to mention that? JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 06:52, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Hehe, I see, though this would be much better if written as prose in a history section. FunkMonk (talk) 11:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Ah, yeah, the article still needs some major improvements, but I may expand it in the future... JurassicClassic767 (talk | contribs) 16:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

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