Balaenognathus
Balaenognathus was a flying reptile that lived about 150 million years ago. It had a strange, spoon-shaped snout with hundreds of tiny hooked teeth. It used its beak like a strainer to scoop up tiny shrimp from the water, just like a modern flamingo.12
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Fun facts
Balaenognathus had at least 480 teeth, more than most other pterosaurs.1
The tips of its teeth had tiny hooks, which have never been seen in any other pterosaur. These hooks helped trap shrimp so they couldn't escape.12
The front of its snout was shaped like a spatula and had no teeth, so water could flow in easily.1
Its upper jaw was more curved than its lower jaw, so its mouth stayed slightly open at the front even when closed.1
The fossil was found by accident in a quarry in Germany, inside a block of stone that also contained bones of a crocodile-like animal.12
Balaenognathus lived during the Late Jurassic period, about 152 to 149 million years ago.3
It had long legs, which helped it wade through shallow seas while feeding.2
Most asked questions about Balaenognathus
?What did Balaenognathus eat?
It ate tiny shrimp and other small plankton. It used its spoon-shaped beak and hundreds of tiny hooked teeth to strain them out of the water.12
?How big was Balaenognathus?
It was a medium-sized pterosaur with a wingspan of 1.17 metres (3.8 feet). Its body was about 1 metre long.5
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Balaenognathus
- Named by
- Martill et al. 20236
- Group
- Flying reptiles
- Family / clade
- Ctenochasmatidae6
- Classification
- Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea6
- Age of the rocks
- 152 to 149 million years (Kimmeridgian)6
- Countries
- Germany6
- Fossil records
- 1 in the Paleobiology Database6
- Discovery
- Balaenognathus was named by David Martill and colleagues in 2023. The only known fossil was found in September 2011 in a quarry near Wattendorf, Bavaria, Germany, by workers collecting a block of limestone.1
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure exactly how Balaenognathus used its hooked teeth and spatula-like snout to filter food, but they think it may have pumped water in and out by moving its long neck.1
Where the facts come from
- A new pterodactyloid pterosaur with a unique filter-feeding apparatus from the Late Jurassic of Germany | PalZ | Springer Nature Link (link.springer.com)
- Bizarre filter-feeding pterosaur described from Germany | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk)
- PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
- Balaenognathus (en.m.wikipedia.org)
- Balaenognathus (Wikipedia) (Wikipedia)
- Balaenognathus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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