Palaeocursornis

Palaeocursornis is a monotypic genus of pterosaurs. The only known species, P. corneti, was described in 1984 based on a single bone (MTCO-P1637) interpreted as the distal part of a left femur, found in Early Cretaceous (Berriasian rocks (dating to around 143 mya) from a mine at Cornet near Oradea in northwestern Romania. It was initially assumed to be a flightless paleognathe bird, possibly a ratite, and later as a more primitive ornithuromorph or non-avialan theropod (Benton et al., 1997). However, re-evaluation of the specimen suggested that it was not a femur at all, but the upper arm bone (humerus) of a pterodactyloid pterosaur similar to Azhdarcho.[1]

The animal occurred on what at that time was an archipelago of volcanic and coral islands towards the east of the Piemont-Liguria Ocean. As the archipelago lay around 35°N latitude in a warmer, wetter climate than exists today, it was roughly similar to today's Caribbean or Indonesia. The habitat of Palaeocursornis was hilly, karstic terrain with numerous freshwater and/or brackish rivers, lakes and swamps.(Benton et al., 1997)