Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

Sordes is a genus of small pterosaur from the late Jurassic (Oxfordian/Kimmeridgian) Karabastau Svita of Kazakhstan.

The Rhamphorhynchoidea forms one of the two suborders of pterosaurs and represents an evolutionary grade of primitive members of flying reptiles. This suborder is paraphyletic unlike the Pterodactyloidea, which arose from within the Rhamphorhynchoidea as opposed to a more distant common ancestor. Because it is not a completely natural grouping, Rhamphorhynchoidea is not used as a formal group in most scientific literature, though some pterosaur scientists continue to use it as an informal grouping in popular works, such as The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time by David Unwin, and in some formal studi

Dimorphodontidae (or dimorphodontids) is a group of early "rhamphorhynchoid" pterosaurs named after Dimorphodon, that lived in the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic. While fossils that can be definitively referred to the group are rare, dimorphodontids may have had a broad distribution, with fossils known from the UK, the southwest United States, and possibly Antarctica.

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Campylognathoides is an extinct genus of pterosaur discovered in the Württemberg Lias deposits (dated to the early Toarcian age) of Germany; this first specimen however, consisted only of wing fragments. Further better preserved specimens were found in the Holzmaden shale; based on these specimens, Felix Plieninger erected a new genus.

Eudimorphodontidae is an extinct family of early pterosaurs from the Late Triassic (early Norian to Rhaetian age) of Europe. It was named by Peter Wellnhofer in 1978 to include Eudimorphodon ranzii. Some phylogenetic analyses suggested that Eudimorphodontidae is a junior synonym of Campylognathoididae, however more comprehensive analyses found Eudimorphodontidae to be basal to Macronychoptera that includes Campylognathoididae and more derived pterosaurs (Breviquartossa). Wang et al. (2009) found Eudimorphodontidae to include six species (the monospecific Peteinosaurus, Raeticodactylus and Cavi

Eopterosauria is a proposed clade of basal pterosaurs from the Triassic. The term was first used in Andres et al. (2014) to include Preondactylus, Austriadactylus, Peteinosaurus and Eudimorphodontidae. Inside the group were two other new clades, Preondactylia, which included Preondactylus and Austriadactylus, and Eudimorphodontoidea, to include Eudimorphodontidae and Raeticodactylidae. Eopterosauria was defined as "the least inclusive clade containing Preondactylus buffarinii and Eudimorphodon ranzii". The specimen BSP 1994, previously assigned to Eudimorphodon, was named the separate taxon Au

phylogeny of an extinct clade of flying reptiles

Raeticodactylidae is a family of eudimorphodontoid eopterosaurian pterosaurs that lived in Switzerland during the Late Triassic. The family includes Caviramus, and the type genus Raeticodactylus, which are both known from the Kössen Formation, around 205 mya. Raeticodactylidae was first used in 2014 by Andres et al., as a group of all pterosaurs closer to Raeticodactylus than Eudimorphodon. The following phylogenetic analysis follows the topology of Andres et al. (2014).