Uktenadactylus
Uktenadactylus is a genus of anhanguerid pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous Paw Paw Formation of Texas, United States and the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight, England. Fossil remains of Uktenadactylus dated back to the Early Cretaceous period (Barremian to Cenomanian stages), from about 125 to 100 million years ago.
In 1994, Yuong Nam-Lee named a new species within the genus Coloborhynchus: Coloborhynchus wadleighi, based on a partial snout found in 1992 in Albian layers in Tarrant County, holotype SMU 73058 (Shuler Museum of Paleontology, Southern Methodist University at Dallas). The specific name honors the collector of the fossil, Chris Wadleigh. The reference of the species to the genus Coloborhynchus was based on the fact that both C. wadleighi and the type species of Coloborhynchus, Coloborhynchus clavirostris, share the trait of having three pairs of teeth laterally placed within a broad snout tip. This would distinguish both from the species Criorhynchus simus and justify a revival of the genus Coloborhynchus that since an analysis by Reginald Walter Hooley in 1914[1] had generally been considered identical to the genus Criorhynchus or the genus the latter had again been sunk into, Ornithocheirus.[2]
As a result of the reappearance of the concept European workers referred many species discovered in South-America to Coloborhynchus, a practice rejected by most South-American researchers. In 2009 a study by the Brazilian paleontologists Taissa Rodrigues and Alexander Kellner concluded that Coloborhynchus comprised only a single species, its type species, C. clavirostris. Accordingly, in the same publication they created a new genus for C. wadleighi: Uktenadactylus. The genus name is derived from Uktena, a giant horned snake from the mythology of the Cherokee and Greek daktylos, "finger", a common element in the names of pterosaurs since Pterodactylus, referring to their typical wing finger.[3]
In 2020, Borja Holgado and Rodrigo Pêgas named a new species of Uktenadactylus, U. rodriguesae after Rodrigues, known from a snout fragment (cataloged as IWCMS 2014.82) found on the Isle of Wight.[4] This specimen had previously been described in 2015 by David Martill as an indeterminate member of the genus Coloborhynchus on account of the anteriorly-projecting teeth at the snout tip.[5] Holgado and Pêgas recognized that it shared features with U. wadleighi, and thus assigned it as a new species in the same genus.[4]
