Pterosaur remains from the Lower Cretaceous Lianmuxin Formation (upper Tugulu Group) of the southern Junggar Basin (NW China)

The Lower Cretaceous Lianmuxin Formation (upper Tugulu Group) of the southern Junggar Basin has yielded a vertebrate assemblage of relatively low diversity that is dominated by sinemydid turtles. The assemblage currently includes a single pterosaur taxon, the dsungaripterid Lonchognathosaurus, known from a partial cranium and a partial left wing. Here two additional pterosaur specimens are reported, a well-preserved right distal carpal and a nearly complete but slightly crushed right femur. The carpal almost certainly belongs to a dsungaripterid pterosaur, which is distinct from Lonchognathosaurus. The femur shows many similarities to dsungaripterid femora and is probably also assignable to a dsungaripterid, although it possesses unusually thin bone-walls for the group. Due to a lack of overlapping skeletal material, it cannot be compared to Lonchognathosaurus. These specimens shed new light on the diversity of pterosaurs in the poorly known Lower Cretaceous Lianmuxin Formation of the southern Junggar Basin, indicating that probably more than one dsungaripterid taxon was present in the local assemblage.