Brasileodactylus

Brasileodactylus is the name assigned to the remains of a pterosaur (flying reptile) from the Lower Santana formation of the Aptian (Early Cretaceous) of Chapada do Araripe, Ceará, Brazil.

The genus was named by paleontologist Alexander Wilhelm Arnim Kellner in 1984. The genus name means 'pterosaur (literally, [wing] "finger") from Brasil'. The type species is Brasileodactylus araripensis. The specific name refers to the Araripe Plateau. The holotype, MN 4804-V, is the front part of a mandible.

Later remains referred to Brasileodactylus include SMNS 55414, a mandible, and MN 4797–V, the front of a snout and mandible. More complete fossils are BSP 1991 I 27, a fragmentary skeleton, and AMNH 24444, a 429 millimetre long skull, with mandible and proximal left wing. The last two specimina have been assigned to a Brasileodactylus sp. indet. by André Jacques Veldmeijer.

Kellner first assigned Brasileodactylus to the Ornithocheiridae. In 1991 he changed that to a more cautious Pterodactyloidea incertae sedis. In [2000] he affirmed a close affinity to the Anhangueridae. David Unwin in 2001 considered the form part of Anhanguera but later retracted. Eberhard Frey in 2003 thought it was a species of Coloborhynchus. In 2007 Unwin and David Martill suggested Ludodactylus was a junior synonym of Brasileodactylus.

Brasileodactylus was medium sized pterosaur with a wingspan of approximately four metres. It had a long pointed snout and conical teeth that in the extreme front of the jaws were long, thin and forward pointing. Unlike some other Brazilian pterosaurs it had no crest on the snout or lower jaw but might have had one on the back of the skull.