Abstract: We report on a diminutive pterosaur specimen (MIC-V246), from the Lower Cretaceous Lagarcito Formation, which has anatomical features and general proportions that agree with those of other juvenile specimens of the filter-feeding pterosaur Pterodaustro guinazui . MIC-V246 is nearly complete, with the majority of its bones in natural articulation. The specimen is preserved within a small oval surface inferred to demarcate the outline of an egg. It includes remains of the skull and mandible, some cervical, dorsal, sacral and caudal vertebrae, ribs, gastralia, both shoulder girdles, part of the ilium, and the forelimbs and hindlimbs. The skeleton is arranged in a position similar to that of avian embryos, with the wings folded sideways, the hindlimbs flexed, and the skull tucked beneath a wing. The bones are partially covered by an irregularly distributed substance differing in texture and colour from the bony elements, and identified as remnants of the eggshell. The diminutive size of the skeleton, along with its arrangement and morphology, support the identification of this specimen as one of the very few pterosaur embryos known worldwide. Its similarity in size to other Pterodaustro specimens interpreted as hatchlings suggests that MIC-V246 was near hatching when it died.

Abstract: A new anurognathid pterosaur, Vesperopterylus lamadongensis gen. et sp. nov., is erected based on a complete skeleton with a skull preserved. It is characterized by two short distinct ridges present on the ventral surface of the cervical vertebrae; coracoids slightly longer than scapula; humerus, wing phalanx 3 and tibia nearly the same in length; grooves clearly present on the posterior surface of the wing phalanges 1–3; and the first toe reversed. It is the first anurognathid pterosaur from China with a definitively short tail, and the first pterosaur with a reversed first toe. The reversed first toe of Vesperopterylus indicates that it had arboreal habitats. The discovery of Vesperopterylus lamadongensis from the Jiufotang Formation strongly expands the geological age range for anurognathid pterosaurs. Supplementary material: The character list and data matrix for phylogenetic analysis are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3873394

Abstract: Six specimens accessioned to the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich, Germany, in 1966 are identified as coming from a gigantic pterodactyloid pterosaur. The previously undescribed material was obtained in 1955 by Jean Otto Haas and compares favourably in size with the type specimen of the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) azhdarchid pterosaur Arambourgiania philadelphiae ( Arambourg 1959 ) from the same locality/region. The material represents fragments of two cervical vertebrae, a neural arch, a left femur, a ?radius, and a metacarpal IV and bones of problematic identity, and does not duplicate the type material of Arambourgiania . The timing of its collection and its locality of Ruseifa, Jordan suggest it might pertain to the same individual as the holotype.

Abstract: The Middle–Upper Jurassic Oxford Clay Formation of the UK is a highly productive fossiliferous unit, containing numerous fossils of marine and terrestrial vertebrates. Despite this abundance, pterosaurs make up only a tiny percentage of the assemblage. There are currently only seven specimens accessioned in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and Natural History Museum, London. Of these, only one specimen (an association of material from a juvenile animal) has been named, identified as Rhamphorhynchus jessoni . Following a detailed examination, it is identified here as lacking any autapomorphies and the species R . jessoni is considered a nomen dubium . The other Oxford Clay Formation pterosaur fossils are similarly identified as indeterminate, except for an isolated scapulocoracoid which is positively identified as Rhamphorhynchus sp. The rarity of pterosaurs is attributed to a combination of the fragility of their bones and the tendency of volant animals to have low population densities at sea.

Abstract: The Brazilian Crato Formation (Lower Cretaceous, Aptian) is well known for its rich pterosaur fauna. This paper deals with a new find represented by four articulated mid-cervical vertebrae. The vertebrae show a morphology consistent with that seen in the Chaoyangopteridae, especially the relative elongation, low neural spines, lack of pneumatic foramina on the lateral face of the centra and the presence of well-developed postexapophyses. Chaoyangopterids are, so far, represented with confidence only in Chinese deposits; the only record outside the Jehol Group is the Crato Formation form Lacusovagus magnificens , a partial skull whose assignment to the Chaoyangopteridae has been disputed. Given this controversy, we review the phylogenetic position of Lacusovagus , and discuss the nesting of our new specimen among theChaoyangopteridae, providing some comments concerning the composition of the group. We conclude that our new specimen provides further support for the presence of chaoyangopterids in the Early Cretaceous of Brazil. Supplementary material: Phylogenetic analysis data are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3873391

Abstract: A specimen of a pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Upper Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation (Early Cretaceous, Valanginian) of Bexhill, East Sussex, southern England is described. It comprises a small fragment of jaw with teeth, a partial vertebral column and associated incomplete wing bones. The juxtaposition of the bones suggests that the specimen was originally more complete and articulated. Its precise phylogenetic relationships are uncertain but it represents an indeterminate lonchodectid with affinities to Lonchodectes sagittirostris ( Owen 1874 ) which is reviewed here, and may belong in Lonchodraco Rodrigues & Kellner 2013 . This specimen is only the third record of pterosaurs from this formation.

Abstract Smith Woodward embarked on the production of a catalogue of fossil fishes half a century after Louis Agassiz began a similar exercise. These two palaeontological goliaths remain the only authorities who saw all relevant fossil fish material in all important collections. Between their works there was a substantial increase in the number of species recognized, reflecting the nineteenth-century passion for collecting, the rise of museums, as well as an acceptance that species change through time. Agassiz was working in pre-evolutionary days but Smith Woodward’s view on fish diversity was strongly influenced by the theory of evolution and specifically the writings of Thomas Henry Huxley as well as those of Edward Drinker Cope and Ramsay Heatley Traquair and their ideas of grades of evolution. Many of Smith Woodward’s generic and species descriptions survive today as his lasting legacy. Higher classification has changed considerably with new discoveries and differing methods of classification.

Abstract The Natural History Museum (NHMUK) fossil reptile collections contain a set of specimens sent to Arthur Smith Woodward in 1908 by the Argentinian palaeontologist, Florentino Ameghino. This collection includes a skull and other material of Cricosaurus , a metriorhynchid thalattosuchian (or ‘sea crocodile’), a group of marine crocodylomorphs that existed from at least the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous. Handwritten labels in Spanish, probably by Ameghino, and notes in English signed by Smith Woodward are still with the specimens. Using Ameghino and Smith Woodward’s correspondence to investigate the history of the specimens, we have determined that they came from the Vaca Muerta Formation of the Neuquén Basin in Patagonia, they were in the fossil collection of the Museo Nacional, Buenos Aires (MNBA) and that Ameghino loaned them to Smith Woodward for a study that was never published. Therefore, they will be returned to Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia’, Buenos Aires. These fossils, although not the most impressive, are probably the first metriorhynchid material collected in South America.

Abstract Early Jurassic plesiosaurian fossils are rare in the Scandinavian region, with a few isolated bones and teeth known from Bornholm, and anecdotal finds from East Greenland. The only other identifiable specimens derive from Toarcian-aged (based on ammonites) erratics deposited during Late Pleistocene glacial advances near the town of Ahrensburg, NE of Hamburg in northern Germany. The geographical source of these transported clasts is debated, but reconstructed ice-flow directions and lithofacies comparisons implicate either the offshore Baltic Sea between the Island of Bornholm and Mecklenburg–Vorpommern (Germany) or, less probably, south of the Danish Archipelago (Mecklenburg Bay). These regions collectively bordered the Fennoscandian landmass and adjacent Ringkøbing-Fyn Island in the late Early Jurassic, and were dominated by near-shore marine deltaic to basinal settings. The Ahrensburg plesiosaurian remains include postcranial elements reminiscent of both the microcleidid Seeleyosaurus and the rhomaelosaurid Meyerasaurus . These occur alongside other classic ‘Germanic province’ marine amniotes, such as the teleosaurid crocodyliform Steneosaurus and ichthyosaurian Stenopterygius cf. quadriscissus : thus, advocating faunal continuity between Scandinavia and southern Germany during the Toarcian, and a less pronounced marine reptile faunal provinciality than previously assumed.

Abstract A partial exoccipital–opisthotic from the uppermost lower Campanian (Upper Cretaceous) of the Åsen locality, Kristianstad Basin, southernmost Sweden, is described and illustrated. The fossil represents the first braincase element of a plesiosaur found in Sweden. It includes the chamber for the ampulla and utriculus, openings for the caudal vertical and horizontal semicircular canals, and four foramina for cranial nerves. The incomplete braincase can be referred to an elasmosaurid plesiosaur, and closely resembles the exoccipital–opisthotic of Libonectes morgani and a referred specimen of Aristonectes parvidens . Although we discuss putative postcranial material of the elasmosaurid subfamily Aristonectinae in the uppermost lower Campanian of southernmost Sweden, the exoccipital–opisthotic from Åsen most likely belongs to a juvenile individual of a non-aristonectine elasmosaur.