Rhamphorhynchus
by Joey S.
My animal is the Rhamphorhynchus. It was one of the first flying vertebrate animals. It has a hair-like covering; it caught fish like a seagull and had a very long tail with vertical rudders. It had a wing span of one meter. It had very large eyes to make them good flyers, a hole in the lower jaw, and a pair of holes between the nose and eyes. It lived about 165 to 150 million years ago. Then it became extinct.
In the beginning there were vertebrates (vertebral column and brain case). Then they evolved into gnathostomes (jaw). Those animals inherited the trait of tetrapods (4 limbs). Then they became amniotes (water tight egg). Then my animal evolved to be sauropsids (pair of openings in the palate).
The most closely related animals to my animal are all the animals from the apatosaurus down to the triceratops. The most advanced trait that they share is that they are all sauropsids. I used the cladogram to follow the branch from my animal to the first node I saw. Then every other animal that branched off from that node was the most closely related to my animal.
The three most closely related animals to my animal at the AMNH were the pterodactyloids, anhanguera, and the quetzalcoatlus. The traits that make them separate is first, horizontally inclined quadrate, then a hole in the lower jaw, then a long forth finger that formed its wings. I used the cladogram at the museum to see all the traits leading up to my animal so I could find the most closely related animal to my animal.
Last updated April 7, 2007.