Phylogeny of pterosaurs


This phylogeny of pterosaurs entails the various phylogenetic trees used to classify pterosaurs throughout the years and varying views of these animals. Pterosaur phylogeny is currently highly contested and several hypotheses are presented below.

Unwin (2003)

The matrix includes 19 pterosaur groups plus a single outgroup. The taxa were coded for 60 characters.

Kellner (2003)

The matrix includes 39 valid pterosaur species, although Rhamphorhynchus longicaudus and Nyctosaurus bonneri are usually considered to be synonymous with R. muensteri and N. gracilis respectively, plus a three outgroup species. The taxa were coded for 74 characters.

Andres (2013)

In 2010, Brian Blake Andres wrote a review of pterosaur phylogeny in his dissertation. His phylogenetic analysis combined data mainly from three different matrixes: Kellner's original analysis and its updates, Wang et al. and Wang et al. ), Unwin's original analysis and its updates, Unwin, Lu et al. and Lu et al. ) and previous analyses by Andres et al., Andres and Ji and Andres et al.. Additional characters are taken from DallaVecchia, Bennett' analyses and various older, non-phylogenetic, papers.
The matrix includes 100 valid pterosaur species plus a single outgroup. This represents 70.4% of 142 known pterosaur species. These were scored for 183 morphological characters. The resultant topology is well supported and more resolved than previous analyses. Furthermore, it codes only species as terminal taxa, and uses the holotype specimens for the codings. This phylogenetic analysis was used by Richard J. Butler, Stephen L. Brusatte, Brian B. Andres and Roger B. J. Benson to assess the morphological diversity and fossil sampling biases of the Pterosauria. A paper focusing on the pterosaur phylogeny will be published in an upcoming book named "The Pterosauria". An updated and more resolved version of this phylogeny was published formally by Andres and Myers containing 185 characters and 109 ingroup taxa. Below is a cladogram showing these results after the exclusion of three taxa that can be coded only for one character.