Ardeadactylus
Ardeadactylus (from "Ardea" – meaning "heron", and also a name of a genus of herons – and "dactylus", meaning "finger") is an extinct genus of ctenochasmatoid pterosaur known from the Late Jurassic Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria, southern Germany. It contains a single species, Ardeadactylus longicollum, which was originally thought to be a species of "Pterodactylus", as "P. longicollum". History. Only two specimens of "Ardeadactylus" are known to exist currently: SMNS 56603 (earlier SMNS 5802) found in 1874, a specimen from Nusplingen initially thought to belong to the species "Pterodactylus suevicus" (currently "Cycnorhamphus"), and the neotype of the species, JME-SOS 2428 , a specimen held at Jura Museum in Eichstätt. Other known specimens, including the holotype designated by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer when he named the type species "Pterodactylus longicollum" in 1854, were lost during World War II. The original holotype, consisting of the skull, neck and anterior torso, had been found near Eichstätt in 1853 and was that year acquired for the "Herzoglich Leuchtenbergische Naturalien-Kabinett" by Professor Ludwig Frischmann. Its destruction motivated Peter Wellnhofer to assign a neotype in 1970. Description. "Ardeadactylus" is suspected to be a heron–like, long–necked long–legged piscivore. It was similar to "Pterodactylus  antiquus" in its general body form, but seems to have been larger. Bennett (2013) estimated the wingspan of the neotype specimen to be ; the referred specimen from the Jura Museum is more or less 10% larger. "A. longicollum" had fewer, fifteen per jaw, and relatively larger teeth than "P. antiquus", possibly indicating that it preyed on larger fish than "Pterodactylus". Classification. In 2017, a phylogenetic analysis by Steven Vidovic and David Martill found "Ardeadactylus" within the family Aurorazhdarchidae, sister taxon to "Aurorazhdarcho". Their cladogram is shown below: In 2018 however, Nicholas Longrich and colleagues had recovered a different set of  relationships for ctenochasmatoids. In their analysis, "Ardeadactylus" was recovered within the Ctenochasmatidae instead. Their cladogram is shown below.