Aurorazhdarcho
Aurorazhdarcho is an extinct genus of ctenochasmatoid pterosaur known from the Late Jurassic period (early Tithonian stage) of what is now Bavaria, southern Germany.[1]
A specimen, originally classified as Pterodactylus micronyx (now Aurorazhdarcho micronyx), was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, documented pterosaur fossil ever found. The holotype specimen of P. micronyx, also known as the "Pester Exemplar", was originally part of the private fossil collection held by Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria. Evidence suggest that the Pester Exemplar was unearthed at some point between 1757, when Maria Anna was recovering from serious cases of pneumonia and tuberculosis, after which she began collecting fossils, and 1779, when the specimen was first studied by scientists. This overlaps with the possible time of discovery of the holotype specimen of Pterodactylus antiquus, often considered the first pterosaur found, which was unearthed sometime between 1767 and 1784.[2]
The Pester Exemplar consists of a jumbled and partially dis-articulated juvenile pterosaur skeleton lacking a skull. Because of this, and the unusual (and at the time totally unknown) anatomy of pterosaurs, the specimen was originally misidentified as a decapod crustacean when it was first studied by Ignaz von Born, a prominent Enlightenment naturalist. In 1871, the specimen was sold, along with the rest of Maria Anna's collection, to the Royal Hungarian University of Buda in Hungary, from which it was later transferred to the collection of Pest University when the university relocated.[2] (In 1950, the name of the university changed again to Eötvös Loránd University).
In 1856, Hermann von Meyer illustrated the Pester Exemplar, and designated it the type specimen of his new species Pterodactylus micronyx after comparison with the newly recognized and better-preserved pterosaur specimens, all of which were lumped together at that time into the single genus Pterodactylus. However, by 1960, Peter Wellnhofer was not able to locate the specimen in the Hungarian National Museum or in the collections of Eötvös Loránd University. Wellnhofer therefore considered the specimen lost, and designated a neotype. The Pester Exemplar was re-discovered in 1982, during a re-organization of the collections in Eötvös Loránd University, and so the status of type specimen for P. micronyx reverted to it.[2]
In 1999, amateur paleontologist Peter Katschmekat uncovered a fossil of a pterosaur in the Blumenberg Quarry, 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) northwest of Eichstätt, in layers of the Solnhofen limestone. The fossil was prepared by Gerd Stübener and acquired by the Swiss Naturhistorisches Museum Basel. Based on the specimen, the type species Aurorazhdarcho primordius was named and described by Eberhard Frey, Christian A. Meyer and Helmut Tischlinger in 2011. The generic name is derived from Latin aurora, "dawn" and Kazakh Azhdarcho, the name of a mythical dragon. The specific name means "primordial" or "the very first" in Latin.[1]
