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ABSTRACT
The Caiuá Group (Cretaceous of Southern Brazil) is famous for the Pterosaur Graveyard site, a location that has yielded hundreds of tapejarid specimens, among other taxa. Previous works had already presented various specimens of Pterosaur Graveyard (PG) tapejarids, reporting on several cranial elements showing substantial anatomical variations. These variations have been interpreted as intraspecific in nature, with all tapejarid specimens having been attributed to a single species, Caiuajara dobruskii. The present contribution reassesses the morphological diversity found in PG tapejarid specimens. Evidence is provided for the interpretation of several variations as interspecific in nature, particularly regarding rostral, palatal, occipital, and third cervical morphology. The present data indicate a segregation of the PG tapejarid specimens between two consistent morphotypes, which are interpreted here as two distinct, coexisting species: Caiuajara dobruskii and Torukjara bandeirae gen. et sp. nov.
Acknowledgments
I thank FAPESP for doctoral and postdoctoral scholarships (#2019/10231-6, #2023/11296-0); the Willi Hennig Society for making TNT freely available; and the CENPALEO team (Luiz Weinschütz, Vilson Greinert, João Ricetti, Everton Wilner, and Camila Zakaluzny) for access to specimens under their care, as well as their kind help and warm hospitality during my visit to CENPALEO. Finally, I thank Kamila Bandeira and Borja Holgado for many discussions, and reviewers Felipe Pinheiro and Nicholas Longrich for many insightful considerations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary materials
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2024.2355664.