Alanqa

Alanqa; Temporal range: Late Cretaceous PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
	An artist's illustration (Davide Bonadoma) of Alanqa
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Order:	Pterosauria
Family:	†Azhdarchidae
Genus:	†Alanqa; Ibrahim et al., 2010
Type species
	†Alanqa saharica; Ibrahim et al., 2010

Alanqa is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous period (Cenomanian stage) of what is now the Kem Kem Beds of southeastern Morocco. The type species is Alanqa saharica.

Discovery[]

A team of paleontologists who was aided by local villagers had been excavating at several locations in the Kem Kem Beds during April, November to December 2008 They uncovered remains of several different pterosaurs. The material was fragmentary.

Description[]

Alanqa is known only from five fragments of the front upper and lower jaws, and possibly a neck vertebra. Two of these fragments were first described but not named by Wellnhofer and Buffetaut. and referred to a pteranodontid. Three additional jaw specimens, including a better preserved upper jaw, were described and named by Ibrahim and his colleagues in 2010. The jaws were straight and pointed, like those of the azhdarchids Quetzalcoatlus. Based on comparison to related species, the individuals known from jaw specimens probably had wingspans of about 4 meters (13 ft). However, according to Ibrahim and colleagues, the vertebra appeared to come from a larger individual, measuring about 6 meters (20 ft) in wingspan. A rostrum fragment was described in 2015 and referred to Alanqa based on provenance. This fragment has two bony protuberances where the jaw occludes, coinciding with an eminence on one of the mandibles originally referred to Alanqa. These imply an unusual functional specialization in this pterosaur.

Classification[]

In its initial description, Alanqa was referred to the Azhdarchidae, based on the similarity of its jaws to those of Quetzalcoatlus and Zhejiangopterus. The result was reproduced by a subsequent analysis. Another analysis by Nicholas Longrich and colleagues in 2018 recovered Alanqa as a thalassodromid, sister taxon to Aerotitan.

Paleoecology[]

Alanqa was recovered from the Kem Kem Group of the Late Cenomanian period. It is believed to have been in the middle of ecosystem's food web, preying on both small animals like crustaceans and mollusks, amphibians like Kababisha and Oumtkoutia, small to medium-sized reptiles like Simoliophis and Jeddaherdan aleadonta, and even small or juvenile dinosaurs, much like other azhdarchids. On the other hand, Alanqa would be a prey item for the large predators of the ecosystem, such as theropod dinosaurs, like Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Sauroniops.