Bellubrunnus (meaning "the beautiful one of Brunn" in Latin) is an extinct genus of rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian stage) of southern Germany. It contains a single species, Bellubrunnus rothgaengeri. Bellubrunnus is distinguished from other rhamphorhynchids by its lack of long projections on the vertebrae of the tail, fewer teeth in the jaws, and wingtips that curve forward rather than sweep backward as in other pterosaurs.
Bellubrunnus by Joschua Knüppe
Description[]
The skull of Bellubrunnus has been noted for being proportionately short with large eyes,The teeth in the jaws of Bellubrunnus are long, thin and splay outwards to the sides and front of the mouth, a dental arrangement that is quite common in rhamphorhynchid pterosaurs. Bellubrunnus is noted for having a very flexible tail thanks to the short chevrons and zygapophyses of the caudal (tail) vertebrae. The wings of the Bellubrunnus holotype are also noted as curving backwards at the phalanx.
Discovery[]
Bellubrunnus is known from a single complete articulated skeleton, the holotype of the genus, having the accession number BSP–1993–XVIII–2. It was found in the summer of 2002 by an excavation team led by Monika Rothgaenger, the namesake of the species. It was prepared in 2003 by Martin Kapitzke and at first identified as an exemplar of Rhamphorhynchus. It is preserved in ventral view, meaning that the underside of the skeleton can be seen on the limestone slab. The specimen is currently housed in the Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum, although it is cataloged for, and a possession of, the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie. It comes from a quarry at Kohlstatt near the village of Brunn, Upper Palatinate, in a layer of rock that underlies the better-known Solnhofen Limestone. The quarry dates to the late Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic period, about 151 million years ago. Ultraviolet lighting revealed many details of the fossil but showed no preserved soft tissues.
Classification[]
Bellubrunnus was assigned to the Rhamphorhynchidae and more precisely to the Rhamphorhynchinae.
Paleoecology[]
The stratigraphic unit in the Brunn quarry where the Bellubrunnusholotype was found is almost identical to the Solnhofen Limestone, but slightly older. Like the Solnhofen, the Brunn limestones were likely laid down in the lagoons and reefs of an island region. It is similar to the Solnhofen in that it preserves fossils of land-living flora and fauna alongside marine organisms. Brunn lacks many of the reptiles that have been found from Solnhofen, and while many specimens of Rhamphorhynchus have been found in the Solnhofen Limestone, the single Bellubrunnus specimen is the only known pterosaur from Brunn. Bellubrunnus may have occupied the same ecological niche as Rhamphorhynchus, that of a piscivoreor fish-eater, and may even have been its direct evolutionary ancestor, forming a chronogenus relation within a single persisting population, although more fossils are needed to confirm this relationship.