| Targaryendraconians | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Mandible ofTargaryendraco | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
| Clade: | †Ornithocheirae |
| Clade: | †Targaryendraconia Pêgaset al., 2019 |
| Subgroups | |
Targaryendraconia is an extinctclade oflanceodontianpterosaurs that lived from theEarly toLate Cretaceous period inEurope,North America,South America, andAustralia.
Below is acladogram following a topology by Pêgas and colleagues in 2019. In their analysis, they recovered Targaryendraconia as the sister taxon of the cladeAnhangueria, both of which are within the more inclusive groupOrnithocheirae. Targaryendraconia is split into two families: theTargaryendraconidae, which containsAussiedraco,Barbosania, andTargaryendraco, and theCimoliopteridae, which containsAetodactylus,Camposipterus, andCimoliopterus.[1]
| Ornithocheirae |
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Contrastingly, a study by Alexander Averianov in 2025, describing the new targaryendraconianSaratovia, failed to recover the existence of a cimoliopterid clade. Instead,Cimoliopterus cuvieri,Cimoliopterus dunni,Saratovia, and a grouping ofCamposipterus andAetodactylus formed an unresolvedpolytomy with Targaryendraconidae. He argued that the distinction between the two groups of targaryendraconian were likely caused due to the incompleteness of known remains; cimoliopterids are characterized by traits of the upper jaw, and targaryendraconids by those of the lower jaw. Most of the known genera are only known from upper or lower jaw, and the complete skull ofBarbosania is preserved in a manner preventing study of the interior surface of the jaw. It was also noted that several uniting characteristics of Anhangueria and Anhangueridae are not evaluable in most or all members of Targaryendraconia.[2]
