Dino card No. 0610 of 2,027

Eotephradactylus

Say it: ee-oh-tef-rah-DAK-tih-lus

Name means: “ash-winged dawn goddess”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Eotephradactylus was a seagull-sized flying reptile that lived about 209 million years ago in what is now Arizona, USA. It had a long jaw full of teeth and probably ate fish with tough, armor-like scales.1 2

Fun fact: pterosaurs flew over the dinosaurs, but they were their cousins, not dinosaurs themselves.

Lived

227 to 206 million years ago4

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona, USA4 1

Food

Fish1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Eotephradactylus is one of the oldest pterosaurs ever found in North America.2

Its jawbone was discovered inside a block of rock that was being prepared in a lab, not in the field.1

The tips of its teeth were worn down, which suggests it chewed on hard fish scales or shells.1

It lived in a hot, drying part of the supercontinent Pangaea, near the equator.1

The same bonebed where Eotephradactylus was found also contained one of the world's oldest turtle fossils.2

Its name comes from Greek words meaning 'dawn', 'ash', and 'wing', because it was found in volcanic ash.1

AI-made picture of Eotephradactylus — An AI-made picture of how Eotephradactylus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Eotephradactylus

?How big was Eotephradactylus?

About the size of a small seagull. Its jaw was about 4.3 cm long, and its wingspan was probably around 1 m.3

?What did Eotephradactylus eat?

It probably ate hard-shelled invertebrates or fish with tough, armor-like scales. The tips of its teeth were worn down from chewing.3 1

?Is Eotephradactylus a dinosaur?

No, it is a pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived alongside dinosaurs. It is not a dinosaur.3

?When did Eotephradactylus live?

It lived about 209 million years ago, during the Late Triassic period. That is around 7 million years before the end-Triassic extinction.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Eotephradactylus
Named by: Kligman et al. 20254
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Pterosauria4
Classification: Pterosauria4
Age of the rocks: 227 to 206 million years (Norian)4
Rock formations: Chinle4
Countries: USA4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Eotephradactylus was named by Ben Kligman and colleagues in 2025. The specimen was discovered by Suzanne McIntire while she was preparing a rock block in the lab at Petrified Forest National Park.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how big Eotephradactylus was, because only its jawbone has been found so far.1

Where the facts come from

Unusual bone bed reveals a vertebrate community with pterosaurs and turtles in equatorial Pangaea before the end-Triassic extinction - PMC (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
si.edu (si.edu)
Eotephradactylus (en.wikipedia.org)
Eotephradactylus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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