''Dimorphodon'' was a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
of medium-sized
pterosaur
Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to ...
from the early
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The J ...
Period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
. It was named by
paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.
Owe ...
in 1859. ''Dimorphodon'' means "two-form tooth", derived from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(') meaning "two", (') meaning "shape" and (') meaning "tooth", referring to the fact that it had two distinct types of teeth in its jaws – which is comparatively rare among reptiles. ''Dimorphodon'' inhabited
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
.
Description
The body structure of ''Dimorphodon'' displays many "primitive" characteristics, such as, according to Owen, a very small brain-pan
and proportionally short wings.
The first phalanx in its flight finger is only slightly longer than its lower arm.
The neck was short but strong and flexible and may have had a membranous pouch on the underside. The vertebrae had pneumatic foramina, openings through which the air sacs could reach the hollow interior. ''Dimorphodon'' had an adult body length of long, with a 1.45 metre (4.6 ft)
wingspan
The wingspan (or just span) of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the other wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of , and a wandering albatross (''Diomedea exulans'') caught in 1965 had a wingspan of ...
.
The tail of ''Dimorphodon'' was long and consisted of thirty vertebrae. The first five or six were short and flexible, but the remainder gradually increased in length and were stiffened by elongated vertebral processes.
The terminal end of the tail may have borne a ''
Rhamphorhynchus
''Rhamphorhynchus'' (, from Ancient Greek ''rhamphos'' meaning "beak" and ''rhynchus'' meaning "snout") is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs in the Jurassic period. Less specialized than contemporary, short-tailed pterodactyloid pterosaurs such ...
''-like tail vane, although no impressions have yet been found in ''Dimorphodon'' fossils to confirm this speculation.
Skull
''Dimorphodon'' had a large, bulky skull approximately in length, whose weight was reduced by large openings separated from each other by thin bony partitions.
Its structure, reminiscent of the supporting arches of a bridge, prompted Richard Owen to declare that, as far as achieving great strength from lightweight materials was concerned, no vertebra was more economically constructed; Owen saw the vertebrate skull as a combination of four vertebrae modified from the
ideal type
Ideal type (german: Idealtypus), also known as pure type, is a typological term most closely associated with sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920). For Weber, the conduct of social science depends upon the construction of abstract, hypothetical co ...
of the vertebra. The front of the upper jaw had four or five fang-like teeth followed by an indeterminate number of smaller teeth; the
maxilla
The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...
of all exemplars is damaged at the back. The lower jaw had five longer teeth and thirty to forty tiny, flattened pointed teeth, shaped like lancets.
["Dimorphodon." In: Cranfield, Ingrid (ed.). ''The Illustrated Directory of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures''. London: Salamander Books, Ltd. Pp. 288-291.] Many depictions give it a speculative
puffin
Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...
-like 'beak' because of similarities between the two animals' skulls.
History of discovery
![Dimorphodon macronyx holotype](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Dimorphodon_macronyx_holotype.jpg)
The first fossil remains now attributed to ''Dimorphodon'' were found in England by fossil collector
Mary Anning
Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel ...
, at
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Herita ...
in Dorset,
UK in December 1828.
This region of
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
is now a
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
, dubbed the
Jurassic Coast
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December ...
; in it layers of the
Blue Lias
The Blue Lias is a geological formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassi ...
are exposed, dating from the
Hettangian
The Hettangian is the earliest age and lowest stage of the Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (My ...
-
Sinemurian
In the geologic timescale, the Sinemurian is an age and stage in the Early or Lower Jurassic Epoch or Series. It spans the time between 199.3 ± 2 Ma and 190.8 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Sinemurian is preceded by the Hettangian and is ...
. The specimen was acquired by
William Buckland
William Buckland Doctor of Divinity, DD, Royal Society, FRS (12 March 1784 – 14 August 1856) was an English theologian who became Dean of Westminster. He was also a geologist and paleontology, palaeontologist.
Buckland wrote the first full ...
and reported in a meeting of the
Geological Society
The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe with more than 12,000 Fellows.
Fe ...
on 5 February 1829. In 1835, after a thorough study by
William Clift
William Clift FRS (14 February 1775 – 20 June 1849) was a British illustrator and conservator.
Early life
Clift was born in Burcombe near Bodmin in Cornwall. He was the youngest of seven children and grew up in poverty following his fat ...
and
William John Broderip
William John Broderip FRS (21 November 1789 – 27 February 1859) was an English lawyer and naturalist.
Life
Broderip, the eldest son of William Broderip, surgeon from Bristol, was born at Bristol on 21 November 1789, and, after being educat ...
, this report, strongly expanded, was published in the Transactions of the Geological Society, describing and naming the fossil as a new species. As was the case with most early pterosaur finds, Buckland classified the remains in the
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
''
Pterodactylus
''Pterodactylus'' (from Greek () meaning 'winged finger') is an extinct genus of pterosaurs. It is thought to contain only a single species, ''Pterodactylus antiquus'', which was the first pterosaur to be named and identified as a flying rept ...
'', coining the new
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
''Pterodactylus macronyx''.
The
specific name is derived from Greek ''makros'', "large" and ''onyx'', "claw", in reference to the large claws of the hand. The specimen, presently NHMUK PV R 1034, consisted of a partial and disarticulated skeleton on a slab, lacking the skull. Buckland in 1835 also assigned a piece of jaw from the collection of
Elizabeth Philpot
Elizabeth Philpot (1780–1857) was an early 19th-century British fossil collector, amateur palaeontologist and artist who collected fossils from the cliffs around Lyme Regis in Dorset on the southern coast of England. She is best known today fo ...
to ''P. macronyx''. Later, the many putative species assigned to ''Pterodactylus'' had become so anatomically diverse that they began to be broken into separate genera.
In 1858,
Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.
Owe ...
reported finding two new specimens, NHMUK PV OR 41212 and NHMUK PV R 1035, again partial skeletons but this time including the skulls. Having found the skull to be very different from that of ''Pterodactylus'', Owen assigned ''Pterodactylus macronyx'' its own genus, which he named ''Dimorphodon''.
His first report contained no description and the name remained a ''
nomen nudum
In taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate descr ...
''. In 1859, however, a subsequent publication by Owen provided a description. After several studies highlighting aspects of ''Dimorphodon''s anatomy, Owen in 1874 made NHMUK PV R 1034 the
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
.
Meanwhile, though ''Dimorphodon'' is not a very common fossil, other fragmentary specimens were found. Some of these were acquired by
Othniel Charles Marsh
Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...
between 1873 and 1881 from the London
fossil dealer
The fossil trade is the purchase and sale of fossils. This is many times done illegally with stolen fossils, and many important scientific specimens are lost each year. The trade is lucrative, and many celebrities collect fossils.
The fossil t ...
Bryce McMurdo Wright. One of these had been recovered from early Jurassic strata at the south bank of the Severn river, at the
Aust Cliff
Aust Cliff () is a 5.3 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest adjacent to the Severn Estuary, near the village of Aust, South Gloucestershire, notified in 1954. The Severn Bridge crosses the cliff.
Its SSSI designation is due to ...
.
An additional species of ''Dimorphodon'', ''D. weintraubi'', was named by James Clark ''et al'' in 1998 from a partial skeleton recovered in siltstones from the site Huizachal Canyon in
La Boca Formation
The La Boca Formation is a geological formation in Tamaulipas state, northeast Mexico. It was thought to date back to the Early Jurassic, concretely the Pliensbachian stage epoch. Although, the latest studies had proven that the local Vulcanism, r ...
in
Tamaulipas
Tamaulipas (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tamaulipas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tamaulipas), is a state in the northeast region of Mexico; one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Federal Entiti ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, from the Early Jurassic (
Pliensbachian
The Pliensbachian is an age of the geologic timescale and stage in the stratigraphic column. It is part of the Early or Lower Jurassic Epoch or Series and spans the time between 190.8 ± 1.5 Ma and 182.7 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Plien ...
), where remains of
sphenodontian
Rhynchocephalia (; ) is an order of lizard-like reptiles that includes only one living species, the tuatara (''Sphenodon punctatus'') of New Zealand. Despite its current lack of diversity, during the Mesozoic rhynchocephalians were a diverse g ...
s,
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
s and
mammaliaform
Mammaliaformes ("mammalian forms") is a clade that contains the crown group mammals and their closest extinct relatives; the group radiated from earlier probainognathian cynodonts. It is defined as the clade originating from the most recent com ...
s have also been found.
It is known from the type specimen, IGM 3494 (Instituto Geológico de México, of the
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...
), that comprises articulated pieces of the skeleton including the posterior part of skull, four cervical vertebrae, the scapulocoracoids, left humerus, partial right wing and right leg distal to mid
tibiotarsus
The tibiotarsus is the large bone between the femur and the tarsometatarsus in the leg of a bird. It is the fusion of the proximal part of the tarsus with the tibia.
A similar structure also occurred in the Mesozoic Heterodontosauridae. These sm ...
. This specimen is larger than ''D. macronyx'' and the well preserved foot of it shows that pterosaurs do not have a
digitigrade
In terrestrial vertebrates, digitigrade () locomotion is walking or running on the toes (from the Latin ''digitus'', 'finger', and ''gradior'', 'walk'). A digitigrade animal is one that stands or walks with its toes (metatarsals) touching the groun ...
posture in their hindlimbs, but that it have a plantigrade gait, as has been inferred from footprints. The name of the species is a homage to Dr. Robert L. Weintraub.
Later studies considered this species not closely related to ''Dimorphodon macronyx'', but an early relative of
Anurognathidae
Anurognathidae is a family (biology), family of small, short-tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe, Asia, and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Five genera are known: ''Anurognathus'', from the Late Jurassic of G ...
.
Classification
In 1870, Seeley assigned ''Dimorphodon'' to its own family,
Dimorphodontidae
Dimorphodontidae (or dimorphodontids) is a group of early "rhamphorhynchoid" pterosaurs named after '' Dimorphodon'', that lived in the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic. While fossils that can be definitively referred to the group are rare, dimorp ...
, with ''Dimorphodon'' as the only member. It was suggested in 1991 by the German paleontologist
Peter Wellnhofer
Peter Wellnhofer (born Munich, 1936) is a German paleontologist at the Bayerische Staatssammlung fur Paläontologie in Munich. He is best known for his work on the various fossil specimens of ''Archaeopteryx'' or "Urvogel", the first known bird. W ...
that ''Dimorphodon'' might be descended from the earlier European pterosaur ''
Peteinosaurus
''Peteinosaurus'' ( ; meaning "winged lizard") was a prehistoric genus of pterosaur. It lived in the late Triassic period in the late Norian age (about 221 to 210 million years ago), and at a wingspan of around , was one of the smallest and earli ...
''.
Later exact
cladistic
Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...
analyses are not in agreement. According to Unwin, ''Dimorphodon'' was related to, though probably not a descendant of, ''Peteinosaurus'', both forming the
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
Dimorphodontidae, the most basal group of the
Macronychoptera
Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 6 ...
and within it the sister group of the
Caelidracones. This would mean that both dimorphodontid species would be the most basal pterosaurs known with the exception of ''
Preondactylus
''Preondactylus'' is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs from the Late Triassic (late Norian)Barrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas. ''Zitteliana'', 61-107/ref> that ...
''. According to
Alexander Kellner
Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner (born September 26, 1961) is a Brazilian geologist and paleontologist who is a leading expert in the field of studying pterosaurs. His research has focused mainly on fossil reptiles from the Cretaceous Period, i ...
, however, ''Dimorphodon'' is far less basal and not a close relative of ''Peteinosaurus''.
The cladogram recovered by Andres and Myers in 2013 is reproduced below.
Palaeobiology
Diet
![Dimorphodon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Dimorphodon.png)
The knowledge of how ''Dimorphodon'' lived is limited. It perhaps mainly inhabited coastal regions and might have had a very varied diet. Buckland suggested it ate insects. Later, it became common to depict it as a
piscivore
A piscivore () is a carnivorous animal that eats primarily fish. The name ''piscivore'' is derived . Piscivore is equivalent to the Greek-derived word ichthyophage, both of which mean "fish eater". Fish were the diet of early tetrapod evoluti ...
(fish eater), though biomechanical studies support Buckland's original insectivore idea better, and inconsistent with the animal's habits (see flight below). ''Dimorphodon'' had an advanced jaw musculature specialized for a "snap and hold" method of feeding. The jaw could close extremely quickly, but with relatively little force or tooth penetration. This, along with the short and high skull and longer, pointed front teeth suggest that ''Dimorphodon'' was an
insectivore
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores wer ...
, though it may have occasionally eaten small vertebrates and carrion as well.
Mark Witton has argued that the animal was a specialised carnivore, being too large for an insectivorous diet and therefore specialised to hunt small lizards, sphenodonts and mammals, though its relatively weak jaw musculature probably meant that it ate proportionally small prey.
Dental microwear Dental microwear analysis is a method to infer diet and behavior in extinct animals, especially in fossil specimens. Typically, the patterns of pits and scratches on the occlusal or buccal surface of the enamel are compared with patterns observed ...
examinations confirm its status as a vertebrate predator, as opposed to several other insectivore or piscivore early pterosaurs.
Locomotion
Like many pterosaurs, ''Dimorphodon'' has been perceived as a soarer in the past, correlating to historical perceptions of pterosaurs as seabird analogues. However, more recent studies show that the animal was actually a rather poor flyer: its wings are proportionally short in relation to the body and its skeleton rather robust, offering very little gliding potential. In life, ''Dimorphodon'' probably relied on frantic short flights in the same manner as modern
fowl
Fowl are birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl (Galliformes) and the waterfowl (Anseriformes). Anatomical and molecular similarities suggest these two groups are close evolutionary relatives; together ...
,
tinamous
Tinamous () form an order of birds called Tinamiformes (), comprising a single family called Tinamidae (), divided into two distinct subfamilies, containing 46 species found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. The word "tinamou" comes ...
and
woodpeckers
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. M ...
, being unable to fly for long distances and probably only taking to the air as a last resort.
Its derived position amidst primitive pterosaurs implies that this ineptitude is a developed trait, not an ancestral characteristic, as earlier pterosaurs like ''
Preondactylus
''Preondactylus'' is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs from the Late Triassic (late Norian)Barrett, P. M., Butler, R. J., Edwards, N. P., & Milner, A. R. (2008). Pterosaur distribution in time and space: an atlas. ''Zitteliana'', 61-107/ref> that ...
'' were capable aeronauts.
![Dimorphodon macronyx](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Dimorphodon_macronyx.jpg)
Owen saw ''Dimorphodon'' as a quadruped. He speculated that the fifth toe supported a membrane between the tail and the legs and that the animal was therefore very ungainly on the ground.
However, his rival
Harry Govier Seeley
Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 – 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist.
Early life
Seeley was born in London on 18 February 1839, the second son of Richard Hovill Seeley, a goldsmith, and his second wife Mary Govier. When his fat ...
, propagating the view that pterosaurs were warm-blooded and active, argued that ''Dimorphodon'' was either an agile quadruped or even a running
biped
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' 'double' a ...
due to its relatively well developed hindlimbs and characteristics of its pelvis. This hypothesis was revived by
Kevin Padian
Kevin Padian (born 1951) is a Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, Curator of Paleontology, University of California Museum of Paleontology and was President of the National Center for Science Education fro ...
in 1983. However, fossilised track remains of other pterosaurs (
ichnite
A fossil track or ichnite (Greek "''ιχνιον''" (''ichnion'') – a track, trace or footstep) is a fossilized footprint. This is a type of trace fossil. A fossil trackway is a sequence of fossil tracks left by a single organism. Over the year ...
s) show a
quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of locomotion where four limbs are used to bear weight and move around. An animal or machine that usually maintains a four-legged posture and moves using all four limbs is said to be a quadruped (from Latin ''quattuor' ...
al gait while on the ground and these traces are all attributed to derived pterosaurs with a short fifth toe. ''Dimorphodon''
's was elongated, clawless, and oriented to the side.
David Unwin
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
has therefore argued that even ''Dimorphodon'' was a quadruped, a view confirmed by computer modelling by
Sarah Sangster
Sarah (born Sarai) is a Patriarchs (Bible)#Matriarchs, biblical matriarch and Prophet, prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her ...
.
Like most non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs, ''Dimorphodon'' was a competent climber, possessing proportionally large and curved ungals and a low center of gravity. Like modern squirrels, it probably moved in a saltatorial manner as it climbed.
See also
*
List of pterosaur genera
This list of pterosaurs is a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the order Pterosauria, excluding purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also genera that are now considered inval ...
*
Timeline of pterosaur research
This timeline of pterosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of pterosaurs, the famed flying reptiles of the Mesozoic era. Although pterosaurs w ...
*
Mary Anning
Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel ...
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q131245
Pterosaurs
Early Jurassic pterosaurs
Jurassic reptiles of Europe
Early Jurassic reptiles of North America
Taxa named by Richard Owen
Fossil taxa described in 1859