ArticlePLoS biology2018
Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.
Article in PLoS biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Recovering lost time in Syria: a gigantic latest Cretaceous azhdarchid pterosaur from the Palmyrides mountain chain.Die Naturwissenschaften · 2025Article
- Azhdarchid pterosaur diversity in the Bayanshiree Formation, Upper Cretaceous of the Gobi Desert, Mongolia.PeerJ · 2025Article
- A new small duckbilled dinosaur (Hadrosauridae: Lambeosaurinae) from Morocco and dinosaur diversity in the late Maastrichtian of North Africa.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A taxonomic revision of thePeerJ · 2023Article
- Novel information on the cranial anatomy of the tapejarine pterosaur Caiuajara dobruskii.PloS one · 2022Article
- Evolution and dispersal of snakes across the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Dinosaur biodiversity declined well before the asteroid impact, influenced by ecological and environmental pressures.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Helically arranged cross struts in azhdarchid pterosaur cervical vertebrae and their biomechanical implications.iScience · 2021Article
- Deep time diversity and the early radiations of birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Article
- Osteology of an exceptionally well-preserved tapejarid skeleton from Brazil: Revealing the anatomy of a curious pterodactyloid clade.PloS one · 2021Article
- Article
- Article
- First complete pterosaur from the Afro-Arabian continent: insight into pterodactyloid diversity.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Article
- Correction: Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.PLoS biology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight and the largest animals to ever take wing. The pterosaurs persisted for over 150 million years before disappearing at the end of the Cretaceous, but the patterns of and processes driving their extinction remain unclear. Only a single family, Azhdarchidae, is definitively known from the late Maastrichtian, suggesting a gradual decline in diversity in the Late Cretaceous, with the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction eliminating a few late-surviving species. However, this apparent pattern may simply reflect poor sampling of fossils. Here, we describe a diverse pterosaur assemblage from the late Maastrichtian of Morocco that includes not only Azhdarchidae but the youngest known Pteranodontidae and Nyctosauridae. With 3 families and at least 7 species present, the assemblage represents the most diverse known Late Cretaceous pterosaur assemblage and dramatically increases the diversity of Maastrichtian pterosaurs. At least 3 families-Pteranodontidae, Nyctosauridae, and Azhdarchidae-persisted into the late Maastrichtian. Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs show increased niche occupation relative to earlier, Santonian-Campanian faunas and successfully outcompeted birds at large sizes. These patterns suggest an abrupt mass extinction of pterosaurs at the K-Pg boundary.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.