''Lonchodectes'' (meaning " lance biter") 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 lonchodectid

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 several formations dating to the

Turonian The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous Epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 93.9 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.8 ± 1 Ma (million years ago). The Turonian is preceded by t ...

(

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

) of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, mostly in the area around

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

. The species belonging to it had been assigned to '' Ornithocheirus'' until David Unwin's work of the 1990s and 2000s.Kellner, A.W.A. (2003). Pterosaur phylogeny and comments on the evolutionary history of the group: In: Buffetaut, E., and Mazin, J.-M. (Eds.). ''Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs''. Geological Society Special Publication 217:105-137. 1-86239-143-2. Several potential species are known; most are based on scrappy remains, and have gone through several other generic assignments. The genus is part of the complex

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

issues surrounding Early Cretaceous pterosaurs from

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and England, such as '' Amblydectes'', ''

Anhanguera Anhanguera may refer to: People * Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva (1672–1740), a bandeirante Places in Brazil * Anhanguera, Goiás, a municipality in the state of Goiás * Anhanguera (district of São Paulo), a district in São Paulo * Parque Anhangue ...

'', '' Coloborhynchus'', and ''Ornithocheirus''.

History and species

Numerous species have been referred to this genus over time, and only those more widely connected with the genus are included here. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

, ''L. compressirostris'', is based on NHMUK 39410, a partial upper jaw from the Turonian-age Upper Cretaceous Upper Chalk near Kent.

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 ...

named in 1851 as a species of '' Pterodactylus'';Owen, R. (1851). Monograph on the fossil Reptilia of the Cretaceous Formations. ''The Palaeontographical Society'' 5(11):1-118. it was transferred to ''Ornithocheirus'' in 1870 by Harry Govier Seeley,Seeley, H.G. (1870). ''The Ornithosauria: an Elementary Study of the Bones of Pterodactyles''. Cambridge, 130 pp. before becoming the type species of ''Lonchodectes'' in

Reginald Walter Hooley Reginald Walter Hooley (5 September 1865 – 5 May 1923) was a businessman and amateur paleontologist, collecting on the Isle of Wight. He is probably best remembered for describing the dinosaur ''Iguanodon atherfieldensis'', now ''Mantellisaurus ...

's 1914 review of ''Ornithocheirus''.Hooley, R.W. (1914). On the Ornithosaurian genus ''Ornithocheirus'' with a review of the specimens from the Cambridge Greensand in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge. ''Annals and Magazine of Natural History'', series 8, 78:529-557. Confusingly, this species was also long regarded, incorrectly, as the type species of ''Ornithocheirus''. A variety of postcranial remains resembling those of Azhdarchoids from the Cambridge Greensand have been referred to ''Lonchodectes''; however, much of this material has since been referred to '' Ornithostoma''.Averianov, A.O. (2012). "''Ornithostoma sedgwicki'' – valid taxon of azhdarchoid pterosaurs." ''Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS'', 316(1): 40–49.

Formerly assigned species

Hooley added two other species at this time, both of which had also been originally referred to ''Pterodactylus'', then to ''Ornithocheirus'': ''L. giganteus'', a

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

-age jaw fragment from the Chalk of Kent;Bowerbank, J.S. (1846). On a New Species of Pterodactyl. Found in the Upper Chalk of Kent (P. giganteus). ''Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society'' 2:7–9. and ''L. daviesii'', another jaw fragment, from the Albian-age Gault Clay.Owen, R. (1874). ''A Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Mesozoic Formations. 1. Pterosauria.'' ''The Palaeontographical Society Monograph'' 27:1–14. ''"Pterodactylus" sagittirostris'', based on NHMUK R.1823, a lower jaw fragment from the ?

Valanginian In the geologic timescale, the Valanginian is an age or stage of the Early or Lower Cretaceous. It spans between 139.8 ± 3.0 Ma and 132.9 ± 2.0 Ma (million years ago). The Valanginian Stage succeeds the Berriasian Stage of the Lower Cretaceou ...

Hauterivian The Hauterivian is, in the geologic timescale, an age in the Early Cretaceous Epoch or a stage in the Lower Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 132.9 ± 2 Ma and 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Hauterivian is preceded by the Va ...

-age Lower Cretaceous Hastings Beds of

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

, ''"Ornithocheirus" platystomus'', ''"Ornithocheirus" machaerorhynchus'', and ''"O." microdon'' were assigned to ''Lonchodectes'' in a 2001 review by David Unwin of Cambridge Greensand pterosaurs. joining ''L. compressirostris'', ''L. giganteus'', ''L. platystomus'', and ''L. sagittirostris'' in his listing of valid species.Unwin, D.M. (2006). ''The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time.'' Pi Press:New York, p. 273. . However, ''L. giganteus'', ''L. machaerorhynchus'', and ''L. microdon'' have since been assigned to a new genus, '' Lonchodraco'', while ''L. sagittirostris'' has been renamed ''

Serradraco ''Serradraco'' is a genus of Early Cretaceous pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Valanginian aged Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation in England. Named by Rigal ''et al.'' in 2018 with the description of a second specimen, it contains a single species, ...

''.Rodrigues, T.; Kellner, A. (2013). "Taxonomic review of the ''Ornithocheirus'' complex (Pterosauria) from the Cretaceous of England". ZooKeys 308: 1. doi:10.3897/zookeys.308.5559. edit ''L. platystomus'' may be a species of '' Amblydectes''. In 2020, a review of Lonchodectidae was conducted by paleontologist Alexander Averianov, where he reassigned the species ''L. machaerorhynchus'' to the genus ''

Ikrandraco ''Ikrandraco'' ("Ikran Avatar'' with a crest on the lower jaw] dragon") is a genus of lonchodraconid pterodactyloid pterosaur known from Lower Cretaceous rocks in northeastern China and the Cambridge Greensand of the UK. It is notable for its unu ...

'' due to similarities in rostral morphology, as ''I. machaerorhynchus'', and he also considered ''L. microdon'' a junior synonym of ''machaerorhynchus''. Therefore, ''Lonchodectes'' is limited to its type species, ''L. compressirostris''.

Classification

Ornithocheirus compressirostris by von Arthaber

In Peter Wellnhofer's 1991 ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs'', written before Unwin's work, the species were included within ''Ornithocheirus'' (because of ''L. compressirostris'' being thought to be the type species), and are in fact the main fossils illustrated to represent the genus. In 2003, Unwin placed them in their own family, Lonchodectidae, which he grouped within the group Ctenochasmatoidea, while in 2006, he placed the family Lonchodectidae within the Azhdarchoidea, the group that includes the tapejarids and

azhdarchids Azhdarchidae (from the Persian word , , a dragon-like creature in Persian mythology) is a family of pterosaurs known primarily from the Late Cretaceous Period, though an isolated vertebra apparently from an azhdarchid is known from the Early Cre ...

. The cladogram below is a topology recovered by Longrich and colleagues in 2018. In their analysis, they placed ''Lonchodectes'' within the family Lonchodectidae as the sister taxon of ''Lonchodraco''. Contrary to previous analyses, Longrich and colleagues placed Lonchodectidae (including ''Lonchodectes'') within the more inclusive group Ornithocheiromorpha.Longrich, N.R., Martill, D.M., and Andres, B. (2018)
"Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary."
''PLoS Biology'', 16(3): e2001663.

Paleobiology

''Lonchodectes'' had long jaws with many short teeth, and the jaws were compressed vertically, like "a pair of sugar tongs with teeth".Unwin, D.M. (2006). ''The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time.'' Pi Press:New York, p. 251. . Related species (including several taxa formerly included within the genus) had crests on their lower jaws, so the same probably also applied to ''L. compressirostris''.Unwin, D.M. (2006). ''The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time.'' Pi Press:New York, p. 106. .

References

External links