Aussiedraco

In the late 1970s a small portion of the lower jaw from a pterosaur was recovered from the Lower Cretaceous Toolebuc Formation of Queensland, Australia. Although initially described by Ralph Molnar and Tony Thulborn in 1980, it wasn’t given the name Aussiedraco molnari until 2011 by Alexander Kellner, Taissa Rodrigues, and Fabiana Costa. The name means “Ralph Molnar’s Australian dragon.” 

Aussiedraco is known from a single partial specimen, just the end of the lower jaw. The specimen is just under 9 cm (3.5 inches) long, tapering toward the tip with a blunt end. The fragment preserves 5 pairs of tooth sockets, although all but one tooth have been lost. When seen from above, the fragment has a scalloped appearance, with the tooth sockets bulging outward. Kellner and colleagues hypothesized that it allowed the teeth in the upper jaw to interlock with those in the lower. The first 4 tooth sockets appear to show that those teeth were directed slightly outward as well as upward. 

Nothing else is known of Aussiedraco’s anatomy, but comparison to related taxa suggests its skull would have been 50-60 cm (20-24 inches) long when complete, with a wingspan of 3-3.5 m (10-11.5 feet). 

Aussiedraco shows many similarities to ornithocheirids like Ornithocheirus and Anhanguera, but lacks the lateral expansion seen at the tips of the jaws of many ornithocheirids. Ornithocheirids were aerial fishers soaring over the surface of the sea. The Toolebuc Formation was deposited under a shallow temperate sea about 105 million years ago.