#allkaruen

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Allkaruen koi

By Joschua Knüppe, retrieved from http://www.pteros.com/, a website dedicated to education about Pterosaurs.

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Name: Allkaruen koi

Name Meaning: Ancient Brain

First Described: 2016

Described By: Codorniú et al. 

Classification: Avemetatarsalia, Ornithodira, Pterosauromorpha, Pterosauria, Macronychoptera, Novialoidea, Breviquartossa, Pterodactylomorpha

Allkaruen is an early derived Pterodactylomorph from the Cañadon Asfalto Formation in Argentina, living about 182 to 168 million years ago, from the Early to Middle Jurassic, sometime between the Toarcian to Bajocian ages. It shows an intermediate evolutionary stage between early derived pterosaurs, such as the Rhamphorhynchoids, and the later derived Pterodactyloids like Pteranodon. It is known from some portions of the skeleton, but more than anything it is known from a very well preserved braincase. It shows a mixture of traits found in more derived and less derived pterosaur brains, indicating that the brains of pterosaurs evolved with changes taking place in some parts of the brain, while others remaining the same (a phenomenon known as mosaic evolution). Even though it wasn’t preserved, it probably had a long tail. 

Sources:

http://www.pteros.com/pterosaurs/allkaruen.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allkaruen

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