title: Earliest filter-feeding pterosaur from the Jurassic of China and ecological evolution of Pterodactyloidea.
abstract: Pterosaurs were a unique clade of flying reptiles that were contemporaries of dinosaurs in Mesozoic ecosystems. The Pterodactyloidea as the most species-diverse group of pterosaurs dominated the sky during Cretaceous time, but earlier phases of their evolution remain poorly known. Here, we describe a 160 Ma filter-feeding pterosaur from western Liaoning, China, representing the geologically oldest record of the Ctenochasmatidae, a group of exclusive filter feeders characterized by an elongated snout and numerous fine teeth. The new pterosaur took the lead of a major ecological transition in pterosaur evolution from fish-catching to filter-feeding adaptation, prior to the Tithonian (145-152 Ma) diversification of the Ctenochasmatidae. Our research shows that the rise of ctenochasmatid pterosaurs was followed by the burst of eco-morphological divergence of other pterodactyloid clades, which involved a wide range of feeding adaptations that considerably altered the terrestrial ecosystems of the Cretaceous world.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Paleontology , Shenyang Normal University , Shenyang 110034 , People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chang-Fu
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: School of Earth and Space Sciences , Peking University , Beijing 100871 , People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ke-Qin
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5765-4596
authors.initials: KQ
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China; School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, UK.
authors.forename: Hongyu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: School of Earth and Space Sciences , Peking University , Beijing 100871 , People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jinzhuang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology , China University of Geosciences , Beijing 100083 , People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Quanguo
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences , University of Alberta , Edmonton, Alberta , Canada T6G 2E9.
authors.forename: Richard C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Fox
keywords: Jurassic pterosaurs; Yanliao Biota; feeding adaptations; palaeoecology; western Liaoning of China