Elsevier

Cretaceous Research

Volume 30, Issue 3, June 2009, Pages 676-686
Cretaceous Research

On pterodactyloid diversity in the British Wealden (Lower Cretaceous) and a reappraisal of “Palaeornis” cliftii Mantell, 1844

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2008.12.004Get rights and content

Abstract

Pterosaur remains from Wealden strata of southern England have largely been referred to the Ornithocheiroidea, with only a solitary controversial claim of a lonchodectid providing evidence of heightened diversity. A reappraisal of a historic Wealden specimen suggests that “Palaeorniscliftii Mantell, 1844, an isolated humerus from the Hastings Beds Group of West Sussex, is not an ornithocheiroid as previously reported but instead confirms the presence of lonchodectid pterosaurs in the British Wealden. The diversity of British Wealden pterosaurs is heightened further by a recently-discovered pterosaur humerus from the Wealden Group of the Isle of Wight, providing the first record of azhdarchoid pterosaurs in the British Lower Cretaceous. This specimen is thought to represent a non-azhdarchid neoazhdarchian and, being from Barremian deposits, represents the earliest known occurrence of such a pterosaur.

Introduction

Lower Cretaceous pterosaur remains have been known from British Wealden strata since 1827 when Gideon Mantell reported the discovery of supposed ‘bones of birds’ in Tilgate Forest, Sussex (Martill, 2008). Pterosaur remains have continued to be recovered from these deposits (now part of the Weald Sub-basin, one of the two major divisions the British Wealden: see Radley, 2006a, Radley, 2006b) and have since also been found in Wealden strata of the Isle of Wight (forming, along with Wealden sediments in Dorset, the Wessex Sub-basin; Fig. 1, Fig. 2). The vast majority of British Wealden pterosaur material has been referred to the Ornithocheiridae (e.g. Howse et al., 2001, Steel et al., 2005) or Istiodactylidae (Hooley, 1913, Howse et al., 2001), and these groups are both found within the large pterosaur clade Ornithocheiroidea (Unwin 2003). Only a possible lonchodectid jaw provides a record of non-ornithocheiroid pterosaurs in the same strata (Unwin et al., 2000, Unwin, 2001), but this claim is mildly controversial. Kuhn, 1967, Kellner, 2003, Kellner, 2004, Wang et al., 2005, Wang et al., 2008 and Andres and Ji (2008) suggest that lonchodectids lie within the Ornithocheiridae [=Anhangueridae]. If so, the British Wealden pterosaur assemblage has, to date, been represented exclusively by ornithocheiroids. Such diversity is comparatively impoverished when contrasted against other pterosaur sites that, in Europe, yield dsungaripterids and ctenochasmatoids along with ornithocheirids and istiodactylids (Jursack and Popa, 1984, Benton et al., 1997, Sánchez-Hernández et al., 2007). Contemporaneous South American and Chinese deposits provide even higher diversity with tapejarids, thalassodromids, chaoyangopterids, dsungaripteroids, lonchodectids, ctenochasmatoids and ornithocheiroids found across several sites (e.g. Martill et al., 2000, Wang and Zhou, 2006, Lü et al., 2006, Unwin and Martill, 2007).

Here, new evidence is presented that suggests British Wealden pterosaur diversity is not as low as currently thought. A reappraisal of one of the first pterosaur fossils found in England, BMNH 2353 and 2353a (“Palaeorniscliftii Mantell, 1844) suggests that its significance as strong evidence of non-ornithocheirid Wealden pterosaurs has been overlooked by pterosaur workers for over 180 years. Adding further diversity to the English Wealden pterosaur assemblage is a new specimen from the Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight, here suggested to represent a neoazhdarchian azhdarchoid. This latter discovery marks the first reported occurrence of this group in Lower Cretaceous deposits of Europe.

Section snippets

Reappraisal of BMNH 2353 and 2353a, “Palaeornis cliftii

BMNH 2353 and 2353a (Fig. 3, Fig. 4) represent one of the earliest discoveries of pterosaur material in England. The specimens, proximal (BMNH 2353, Figs. 3A–F, 4A-F) and distal (BMNH 2353a; Figs. 3G–L, 4G–L) portions of a left humerus, were the focus of a long-running controversy between Gideon Mantell and Sir Richard Owen over the presence of birds in the British Wealden during the 1800s and subjected to numerous nomenclatural revisions throughout the nineteenth century. Subsequently, the

New Wessex formation pterodactyloid

The lonchodectids reported from Wealden deposits of mainland Britain (Unwin et al., 2000) have yet to be unearthed from the Wealden Group of the Isle of Wight, rendering the pterosaur assemblage of this deposit dominated by ornithocheiroids. However, a new specimen, described here, clearly indicates that at least one other pterosaur group is present in these deposits. The specimen, a complete left humerus, currently resides in the collection of Mr Michael Green of Brighstone, Isle of Wight and,

Discussion

Only a handful of valid pterosaur taxa have been named from the British Wealden despite its large geographical expanse and temporal range. The Weald Sub-basin has yielded (?)Lonchodectes sagittirostris and Coloborhynchus clavirostris (Unwin et al., 2000), while Isle of Wight Wealden strata have yielded Istiodactylus latidens (Howse et al., 2001) and Caulkicephalus trimicrodon (Steel et al., 2005). With the controversial exception of (?)Lonchodectes, all these forms can be placed in the

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Sandra Chapman and Angela Milner for providing access to BMNH specimens and historical literature; Stig Walsh for providing historical literature; Chris Bennett for advice and comments on the manuscript; David Unwin for discussions of dsungaripteroid anatomy, characters of pterosaur humeri and general advice on sprucing up the manuscript, and Robert Loveridge for assistance with photography.

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