Cretornis hlavaci
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Cretornis Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 92 Ma |
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| Partial wing of Cretornis hlavaci | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
| Clade: | †Neoazhdarchia |
| Genus: |
†Cretornis Frič, 1881 |
| Type species | |
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†Cretornis hlavaci Frič, 1881 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Ornithocheirus hlavaci (Fritsch, 1881) |
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Ornithocheirus hlavaci (Fritsch, 1881)
Cretornis is a pterosaur genus from the late Cretaceous period (Turonian) of the Czech Republic, dating to about 92 million years ago. It contains the single species Cretornis hlavaci.
The pharmacist Hlaváč at Zářecká Lhota near the town of Choceň found the skeleton of a pterosaur in 1880. In 1881, the Czech naturalist Antonín Frič named it as the type species Cretornis Hlaváči. The generic name is derived from Latin creta, "chalk", in reference to the Cretaceous, and Greek ὄρνις, ornis, "bird", as Frič thought the bones belonged to some ancient bird. The specific name honours Hlaváč.
Afterwards it was realised that the find represented some pterosaur. The name was incorrectly emended by Richard Lydekker into Ornithochirus hlavatschi Fritsch 1881, in 1888. As scientific species names are not allowed to contain diacritical signs, the specific name had to be transcribed. Lydekker chose to write it as if it, and Frič himself, were German, as Bohemia at the time was under a strong German cultural influence. Frič, an ethnic Czech, in 1905 ultimately used the correct transcription Ornithocheirus hlavaci.
Since 1905, the taxon was typically considered a nomen dubium. In 2010 however, Alexandr Averianov concluded that it should be possible to determine unique traits. In 2015 he published a new description, concluding that Cretornis was a valid taxon.
Cretornis is known from the holotype, presently preserved in the collection of the Narodni Muzeum Praze in Prague as "Object 10". It was found in what Frič called the Mittlere Iserschichten, today known as the Jizera Formation, dating from the Turonian. It is a partial skeleton lacking the skull. It contains a complete humerus (upper arm bone), an ulna, radius, wrist and two phalanges of the wing finger.
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