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Concept
Cimoliopterus
Summary
Cimoliopterus is a genus of pterosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now England and the United States. The first known specimen, consisting of the front part of a snout including part of a crest, was discovered in the Grey Chalk Subgroup of Kent, England, and described as the new species Pterodactylus cuvieri in 1851. The specific name cuvieri honours the palaeontologist George Cuvier, whereas the genus Pterodactylus was then used for many pterosaur species that are not thought to be closely related today. It was one of the first pterosaurs to be depicted as models in Crystal Palace Park in the 1850s. The species was subsequently assigned to various other genera, including Ornithocheirus and Anhanguera. In 2013, the species was moved to a new genus, as Cimoliopterus cuvieri; the generic name Cimoliopterus is derived from the Greek words for "chalk" and "wing". Other specimens and species have also been assigned to or synonymised with the species with various levels of certainty. In 2015, a snout discovered in the Britton Formation of Texas, US, was named as a new species in the genus, C. dunni; the specific name honours its collector, Brent Dunn.
C. cuvieri is estimated to have had a wingspan of , and C. dunni is thought to have been similar to C. cuvieri in size. Cimoliopterus can be distinguished from related pterosaurs in features such as having a premaxillary crest that begins hindward on the snout, in having a ridge on the palate that extends forwards until the third pair of tooth sockets, and in the spacing and proportions of the tooth sockets. Unlike similar pterosaurs, the tip of the snout is only subtly expanded to the sides. C. cuvieri and C. dunni differ from each other in various details in the configuration of these features; for example, the crest of C. cuvieri begins by the seventh tooth socket, whereas that of C. dunni begins at the fourth. More completely known related genera were fairly large pterosaurs, with proportionally large skulls, long jaws and tooth-rows, often with large, rounded crests at the front of the jaws.
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