Pterodactyloidea Pterodactyloidea Pterodactyloidea (derived from the Greek words "πτερόν" ("pterón", for usual "ptéryx") "wing", and "δάκτυλος" ("dáctylos") "finger" meaning "winged finger", "wing-finger" or "finger-wing") is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs ("wing lizards"), and contains the most derived members of this group of flying reptiles. They appeared during the middle Jurassic Period, and differ from the basal (though paraphyletic) rhamphorhynchoids by their short tails and long wing metacarpals (hand bones). The most advanced forms also lack teeth, and by the late Cretaceous, all known pterodactyloids were toothless. Many species had well developed crests on the skull, a form of
South Polar region of the Cretaceous into the region suggests that average winter temperatures were greater than , with an average annual temperature of more than . However, polar neosuchians are only known from an almost complete skeleton of "Isisfordia", and other neosuchian remains are of undetermined species. Plesiosaurs inhabited freshwater river and estuary systems, given the locations of their remains, probably colonizing Australia in the Early to Middle Jurassic. Their remains, mainly teeth, have been documented from southeastern Australia deriving from the Late Cretaceous, though they were never described as the remains are too sparse to do so. The teeth share some affinity with pliosaurs,