Dino card No. 0689 of 2,027

Gallodactylus

Say it: GAL-oh-DAK-tih-lus

Name means: “rooster finger”3

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Gallodactylus was a flying reptile that lived near the sea. It had a long beak and probably scooped up fish for dinner. It was not a dinosaur, but a pterosaur.3

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

Lived

149 to 145 million years ago3

Late Jurassic

Fossils found in

Canjuers-Les Bessons quarry, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France1

Food

Fish3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Gallodactylus lived about 149 to 145 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic period.1

Its name means 'rooster finger', because scientists thought its wing finger looked like a rooster's toe.3

Only one species is known: Gallodactylus canjuersensis.1

The only fossil of Gallodactylus is a partial skeleton found in a limestone quarry in France.1

Some scientists think Gallodactylus might actually be the same animal as Cycnorhamphus.1

AI-made picture of Gallodactylus — An AI-made picture of how Gallodactylus 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 Gallodactylus

?How big was Gallodactylus?

No exact size is given in the sources, but it was a medium sized pterosaur with a wingspan estimated at about 1.5 metres (5 feet).2 3

?Did Gallodactylus have teeth?

Yes, it had peg-like teeth at the tips of its jaws, which were blunter and stouter in older individuals.2

?What did Gallodactylus eat?

It was a piscivore, meaning it ate fish, and may also have used its unusual jaws to crush hard invertebrates like mollusks.3 2

?Is Gallodactylus the same as Cycnorhamphus?

Many scientists think so. In 1996, it was reclassified as Cycnorhamphus canjuersensis, and later studies suggested the two species might be the same animal.3 2

Ask Rex about Gallodactylus

Rex only answers questions about this page. 3 questions a day.

Rex is an AI and can make mistakes. He runs on servers in the EU and questions are never saved. Never type your name or other personal things.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Gallodactylus
Named by: Fabre 19763
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Lophocratia3
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea3
Age of the rocks: 149 to 145 million years (Tithonian)3
Countries: France3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Gallodactylus was named by French paleontologist Fabre in 1976, based on a partial skeleton found at the Canjuers-Les Bessons quarry in France.3 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Gallodactylus is a separate genus or if it should be called Cycnorhamphus.1

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Cycnorhamphus (Wikipedia) (Wikipedia)
Gallodactylus 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.

Rex is hungry! Dino Wiki is a dad's project for his dino-loving son, free with no ads. Grown-ups can feed Rex a snack to help keep it online.Feed Rex