Pteraichnus wuerhoensis, a new pterosaur ichnospecies

It is worthwhile to take a closer look at the Wuerho pedal impressions
(Fig. 2). The medial metatarsals appear to be slightly elevated because their impressions disappear as if the sole of the foot was arched (see Peters 2011 for more details and examples). Such a pedal arch would put more weight (= creating deeper impressions) on the medial and lateral digits. The impression of the lateral digit appears to have an unexpected joint not found in pterodactylid or ctenochasmatid ichnites. That ‘bend’ was also drawn by Li, Wang and Jiang (Figs. 2, 3) producing an unexpected lateral bump. Given the present data, the ichnites appear to document metatarsal 4 resting upon pedal digit 5 in this trackmaker (Fig. 3), thus obscuring the appearance of a straight metatarsal 4 that would have been sitting on top of that bent digit 5.

If this is incorrect,
and the Wuerho trackmakers had no pedal digit 5, that would also be in accord with, and convergent with, other post-Jurassic pterosaur descendants of Middle to Late Jurassic dorynathids and scaphognathids in the LPT. These also greatly reduce pedal digit 5 and so produce four convergent clades of ‘pterodactyloid’-grade pterosaurs in the Latest Jurassic and Cretaceous. As mentioned above, scoring in the LPT assumed no long pedal digit 5.

I traced several pedal trackways in the slab
(Fig. 1), but only a few left and right manus impressions are associated with each pedal trackway. That indicates bipedal locomotion with an occasional manus touch to the substrate for these trackways. The authors counted 57 manus imprints and 57 pes imprints, but only a few of these are associated with pedal tracks in typical pterosaur fashion. A collection of manus only tracks appears at mid-slab. Thus the matching numbers (57 and 57) are coincidental.