Barrett PM

Introduction Late Jurassic terrestrial sediments have seen a long history of fossil exploration (e.g.,  Close et al., 2018; Tennant, Chiarenza & Baron, 2018), which led to the discovery of an amazingly high number of dinosaur bearing formations (e.g., McAllister Rees et al., 2004). Despite the great dinosaur diversity known from that age (e.g.,  Lloyd et al., 2008; Barrett, McGowan & Page, 2009; Mannion et al., 2011), regional gaps in our knowledge of Late Jurassic dinosaur faunas still do exist.

Introduction Adaptive radiations, or evolutionary diversifications, play a critical role in the history of life as clades speciate and fill new ecological roles over geologically rapid time intervals (Simpson, 1944; Schluter, 1996).

Introduction Pterosaurs were a group of archosaurs that were the first among tetrapods to evolve powered flight (Unwin, 2003; Witton, 2013). They originated in the Late Triassic and constituted an important part of Mesozoic ecosystems until their extinction at the end of the Cretaceous (Unwin, 2003).