Ornithostoma (meaning "bird mouth") is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period (Albian stage) of Europe, around 110 million years ago. Ornithostoma was once thought to have been a senior synonym of the pteranodontid Pteranodon due to its toothless anatomy and prior naming.
Ornithostoma (meaning "bird mouth") is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous period (Albian stage) of Europe, around 110 million years ago. Ornithostoma was once thought to have been a senior synonym of the pteranodontid Pteranodon due to its toothless anatomy and prior naming.
==History== In 1869, Harry Govier Seeley, cataloguing the fossils of the Sedgwick Museum at Cambridge, referred three snout fragments of toothless pterosaur specimens from the Lower Cretaceous Albian Cambridge Greensand of England to Ornithocheirus simus. These fragments had in 1859 been described by Richard Owen (who considered the later holotype jaw fragment part of a metacarpal) and referred to Pterodactylus sedgwickii and Pterodactylus fittoni. By 1871 Seeley had realised Ornithocheirus simus was a toothed form, different from the fragments. Therefore, he provisionally named them as a separate genus Ornithostoma, the name derived from Greek ὄρνις, ornis, "bird", and στόμα, stoma, "mouth". Seeley as yet provided no specific name. In 1891 however, he named the type species Ornithostoma sedgwicki Seeley 1891, apart from the snout fragments also referring to pelvis elements, claiming it was identical to Pteranodon and had priority. On that occasion he also selected a genolectotype from the three fragments, the holotype of the type species: specimen CAMSM B.54485.
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