Huellas de Pterosaurios en el grupo Oncala (Soria, España). Pteraichnus palaciei-saenzi, nov. icnosp.

Abstract

Several ptesoraur tracksites have been found in the northern area of Soria, Spain, among which Barranco de Valdelavilla (Valdelavilla) stands out due to the great amount of tracks, and Los Tormos (Santa Cruz de Yanguas) because of the occurrence of trackways. This group of tracks is attributable to the ichnogenus Pteraichnus, and the existence of a new ichnospecies has been verified (Pteraichnus palaciei-saenzi). To this moment, only sporadic tracks from these flying reptiles have been found in the other localities and this poor fossil trackway record cannot be attributed to a specific ichnospecies. These findings together with the trackway found in Los Tormos (Santa Cruz de Yanguas), described by Moratalla (1993) and Lockley et al. (1995), and digit impressions of these animals found at Río Ventosa and Valdehuérteles (Fuentes y Meijide, 1996) confirm the generalized presence of these animals in the Oncala Formation, more specifically at subunits IV-b of the Huérteles Aloformation and at the base of V-b of the Valdeprado Aloformation. This can be explained on the basis of environmental conditions in this area at that time -a muddy plain covered at one point by lakes with a more or less long life- being appropriate for these reptiles, who are always associated to coastal or aquatic terrestrial environments, to live and develop.