#pteranodontoidea

Mimodactylus libanensis was a small pterosaur that lived in what is now Lebanon during the late Cretaceous, about 95 million years ago.

It was the latest-surviving known member of a group of pterosaurs called istiodactyliformes, closely related to the Chinese Haopterus.

The only known fossil specimen had a wingspan of around 1.3m (~4'3") — but it was still a juvenile and the full adult size of Mimodactylus is currently unknown. Its long narrow wings were shaped much like those of modern seabirds, suggesting it used dynamic soaring over the shallow sea and scattered islands that covered the region at the time.

Its fairly broad snout and strong pointed teeth may have been used to forage for shrimp at the water's surface similar to some modern albatrosses, a previously undocumented feeding style for pterosaurs.

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Tethydraco

Tethydraco — рід птеродактилоїдних птерозаврів, які жили протягом пізнього крейдяного періоду (маастрихтський етап, приблизно 66 мільйонів років тому) на території сучасного Марокко. Спочатку Tethydraco був віднесений до родини Pteranodontidae. Згодом описуваний матеріал дозволив припустити, що це був аждархід, але пізніші дослідження знову виявили його як птеранодонтида. Типовий і єдиний вид — T. regalis.

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Fossils of pterosaurs are already rather rare due to their fragile hollow bones — and they're especially scarce in Australia, with only a handful of fragments known.

But recently a more complete one was discovered in central-western Queensland.

Ferrodraco lentoni ("Lenton's iron dragon") is named after the ironstone that the fossils were found in, and while it's known only from a partial skull, some pieces of its neck and wings, and various teeth, it's still by far the best pterosaur specimen ever found in Australia.

Living during the mid-Cretaceous, somewhere between 94 and 90 million years ago, it had a 4m wingspan (~13') and was also one of the very last of its kind. It was a member of the ornithocheirids, a group characterized by rounded crests at the tips of their long toothy jaws, which were previously thought to have all gone extinct by that time.

Many of Australia's Cretaceous animals were close relatives of those found in South America, due to an earlier land connection via Antarctica, but surprisingly Ferrodraco wasn't particularly closely related to any South American ornithocheirids. Instead it seems to have been part of a lineage known from halfway around the world in Europe, suggesting that these pterosaurs were capable of crossing long distances over oceans to disperse between continents.

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Ikrandraco avatar, a pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China (~120 mya). Although it was close relative of the well-known Pteranodon it was much smaller, with an estimated wingspan of around 1.5m (4′11) -- similar in size to a large seagull.

Its name was based on the fictional ikran creatures from the 2009 movie Avatar, in reference to similarity of the the large crests on their lower jaws.

Ikrandraco’s skull (scale bar = 5cm) [image source]