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1 Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Apartado 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain gpppesuf{at}lg.ehu.es
2 UMR 8569 du CNRS, Muséum National d’Histoire naturelle, Département Histoire de la Terre, 8 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France bardet{at}mnhn.fr
3 Ministère de l’Energie et des Mines, Direction de la Géologie, BP 6208, Rabat, Morocco
4 Office Chérifien des Phosphates, Centre Minier de Khouribga, Khouribga, Morocco
A large azhdarchid pterosaur is described from the Late Maastrichtian phosphatic deposits of the Oulad Abdoun Basin, near Khouribga (central Morocco). The material consists of five closely associated cervical vertebrae of a single individual. The mid-series neck vertebrae closely resemble those of azhdarchids Quetzalcoatlus and Azhdarcho in that they are elongate, with vestigial neural spines, prezygapophysial tubercles, a pair of ventral sulci near the prezygapophyses, and without pneumatic foramina on the lateral surfaces of the centra. The Moroccan pterosaur is referred to a new genus and species of Azhdarchidae: Phosphatodraco mauritanicus gen. et sp.nov. It is mainly characterized by a very long cervical vertebra eight, bearing a prominent neural spine located very posteriorly. Based on comparisons with azhdarchid vertebrae, the estimated wing span of Phosphatodraco is close to 5 m. This discovery provides the first occurrence of Late Cretaceous azhdarchids in northern Africa. Phosphatodraco is one of the few azhdarchids known from a relatively complete neck and one of the latest-known pterosaurs, approximately contemporaneous with Quetzalcoatlus.
