draco "dragon") is an extinct genus of toothed pterodactyloid pterosaur known from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning Province, northeast China.
Guidraco is known only from the holotype IVPP V17083, an articulated partial skeleton consisting of a nearly complete skull, lower jaws and a series of four, second to fifth, cervical vertebrae.
It was collected at Sihedang near Lingyuan City in the Liaoning Province from the Jiufotang Formation, dating to the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago.
[1] Though not having the form of a true rosette because the jaw ends were not expanded, the intermeshing front teeth functioned as a "prey grab" to catch slippery animals; the describers therefore consider Guidraco to have been a fish-eater.
A phylogenetic analysis found it to be the sister taxon of the Brazilian Ludodactylus, the two species together forming a clade that was closely related to the Istiodactylidae and the Anhangueridae.
The fact that a Chinese form is closely related to a South American species would indicate a large faunal interchange between continents in this period.
Their cladogram is shown on the left[4] Later, in 2019, many subsequent analyses reassigned Guidraco to the family Anhangueridae, specifically to the subfamily Anhanguerinae, sister taxon to the genera Caulkicephalus and Ludodactylus.
[4] Guidraco Boreopterus Zhenyuanopterus Cearadactylus Brasileodactylus Ludodactylus Liaoningopterus Anhanguera Tropeognathus Coloborhynchus Ornithocheirus Topology 2: Holgado & Pêgas (2020).
[9] Siroccopteryx Tropeognathus Mythunga Ferrodraco Aerodraco Coloborhynchus Nicorhynchus Uktenadactylus Caulkicephalus Guidraco Ludodactylus Liaoningopterus Cearadactylus Maaradactylus Anhanguera