Iberodactylus

Iberodactylus is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaurs belonging to the clade Anhangueria, that during the Early Cretaceous lived in the area of present Spain.

In the late 1980s, amateur paleontologist Javier Andreu discovered a pterosaur skull at the Los Quiñones site, 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) west of Obón in Aragón.

At the time it represented the most complete discovery of pterosaur fossil material in Spain apart from the remains of Prejanopterus.

In 2014, the find was reported in the scientific literature by José Antonio Ulloa-Rivas and identified as a member of the Ornithocheiroidea.

[1] In 2019, the type species, Iberodactylus andreui, was named and described by Borja Holgado, Rodrigo Vargas Pêgas, José Ignacio Canudo, Josep Fortuny, Taissa Rodrigues, Julio Company and Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner.

It consists of a partial front snout with crest, containing a number of broken teeth and empty tooth sockets.

[2] The wingspan of Iberodactylus was estimated in 2019 by extrapolating the proportions of the related genus Hamipterus of which skull-wing ratios are known.

Because the crest, a plausible display structure, is relatively robust, the authors assumed that the specimen represents a male individual.

The fossil resembles Hamipterus but in that latter genus, the snout is lower and the front edge of the crest straighter.

[3] Hamipterus Iberodactylus Tropeognathus Coloborhynchus Siroccopteryx Uktenadactylus Caulkicephalus Guidraco Ludodactylus Anhanguera Liaoningopterus Cearadactylus Maaradactylus

Map of the Los Quiñones site
Snouts of Iberodactylus and Hamipterus