Oldest Pterodactylus?

Augustin et al 2022 reported,
“For many decades after its discovery, Pterodactylus has been essentially a wastebasket taxon and dozens of species have been assigned to the genus, many of which later turned out to represent rather distantly related taxa.” (See figure 1 for examples).

The authors present no phylogenetic analysis. Nor any to-scale reconstructions.

Augustin et al 2022 continued,
“Regarding the taxonomy of Pterodactylus, we here tentatively follow Mateer (1976), Bennett (1996b, 2013b), and Jouve (2004) and consequently regard P. kochi as representing a junior synonym of P. antiquus, because we find it difficult to differentiate the two taxa based on the
proposed diagnoses for the time being.”

Don’t “Pull a Larry Martin” (= cherry-picking one or a dozen traits). That’s the old way. The imprecise way. The the ‘relying on citations’ and trusting other authors way. Without precision you can claim almost any superlative. Analysis is hard science.

Other than
the large pterosaur tree (LPT, 264 taxa, Fig 3) your cladogram will tell you which taxa are closely related and how. Start now and build your own cladogram.