Note on the pterosaur material described by woodward from the recôncavo basin, lower cretaceous, Brazil

Abstract

The reported occurrences of pterosaur specimens from the Lower Cretaceous Recôncavo Basin (Bahia), northeastern Brazil, is reviewed herein. All material was described by the British paleontologist A. S. Woodward and is housed at the Natural History Museum in London. The review confirms that all isolated and incomplete quadrates first regarded by Woodward as pterosaurian were later correctly referred to an osteichthyan coelacanthid species, and possibly represent Mawsonia gigas. Two isolated teeth were also found, one of which (BMNH R 8662) is likely the one briefly mentioned by Woodward in 1907 as pterosaurian. Those specimens, described and figured here for the first time, belong to a pterodactyloid pterosaur with affinities to the Anhangueridae. Despite not presenting new morphological data, the pterosaur tooth BMNH R 8662 is of historical importance since it is the first pterosaur from South America to be recorded in the literature. Furthermore, this material shows the presence of anhanguerid-like pterosaurs in the Lower Cretaceous of Bahia, extending the geographical record of this group in Brazil. © 2010 by the Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia.