British Museum Fossil Reveals New Pterosaur, Rewrites Tapejarid Origins

Hints of tapejarids elsewhere appeared in 1999, when researchers recognized a Tapejara-like fragment of lower jaw from the Cenomanian Kem Kem Group of Morocco. Additional North African finds followed in 2020. The British specimen pushes the group's European presence into sharp focus.

In plain terms: a family textbook writers place in Brazil now looks European, at least in part.

How did a 155-year-old description hide a new species?

The specimen was first described in 1870 and later assigned to Ornithostoma sedgwicki, a name the new study argues was doing double duty for two different animals.

"Our reanalysis of Ornithostoma sedgwicki leads us to regard it as a chaoyangopterid," the team writes — a different branch of azhdarchoids. They propose restricting that name to its holotype and three referred jaw fragments, leaving the Cambridge braincase material free for the new genus Hintighernia edingerae.

The fossil comes from the Cambridge Greensand Member of the West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation, a layer of reworked sediment that has produced more than 2,000 pterosaur specimens.

What did the CT scan show?

Using micro-CT scanning, the researchers digitally reconstructed the animal's braincase. The endocast — a model of the cavity the brain once filled — closely resembles that of Tapejara wellnhoferi from Brazil.

The similarity likely reflects close evolutionary kinship, the scientists say, though they caution that further work on pterosaur neuroanatomy is needed before drawing firm family trees from brain shapes.

In short: the British animal's brain matches its Brazilian relatives, but the neurological evidence is still preliminary.

What else turned up in the Cambridge Greensand?

The team also reassessed other pterosaur material from the same beds:

• A snout-tip fragment identified as possibly belonging to the same new genus, labeled cf. Hintighernia.
• Two neck vertebrae and part of an upper arm bone attributed more broadly to tapejarids.
• A separate set of elongated neck vertebrae plus jaw fragments indicating at least one other kind of azhdarchoid in the area.

Counting everything, the researchers recognize at least three azhdarchoid species in the Cambridge Greensand, and a minimum of four distinct azhdarchoid forms when different bone types are considered.

Where does the group go from here?

The authors propose that Europe was a hotspot of early tapejarid diversity and a possible point of origin for two lineages: the sinopterines of eastern Asia and the tapejarines of South America. Dispersal through North Africa — possibly along the land connections described by the Eurogondwana hypothesis — would fit that scenario.

"Our finds suggest that Europe was an important region in the evolutionary history of this group, as an important center of early tapejarid radiation," they conclude.

One overlooked museum drawer just moved a Brazilian icon's birthplace an ocean away.