Dino card No. 0870 of 2,027

Inabtanin

Say it: ee-nab-TAN-in

Name means: “grape dragon”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Inabtanin was a flying reptile that lived about 66 million years ago. It had a wingspan as wide as a small car and probably flapped its wings like a bird to fly.1 2

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

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Jordan, near Russeifa in the Muwaqqar Formation1

Food

Fish3 1

Wingspan

5.35 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

wings as wide as 3 bicycles in a row

How big was Inabtanin compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Inabtanin is one of the most complete pterosaurs ever found in the Afro-Arabia region, which includes parts of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.1

Its name comes from 'Tal Inab', meaning 'grape hill' in Arabic, because the hill near where it was found looks like a grape.1

Scientists used CT scans to look inside its wing bones and discovered a crisscross pattern of tiny struts, similar to bones of flapping birds today.1 2

Inabtanin lived at the same time and place as the giant pterosaur Arambourgiania, which had a wingspan of about 10 metres (33 feet).1 2

It was a toothless pterosaur, meaning it had a beak with no teeth.1

Inabtanin was a non-azhdarchid azhdarchoid, meaning it was a close relative of the giant azhdarchids but not part of that group.1

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

?How big was Inabtanin?

It had a wingspan of about 5.35 metres (17.6 feet), which is as wide as a small car.1

?Did Inabtanin have teeth?

No, it had a toothless beak.1

?How did Inabtanin fly?

It probably flapped its wings like a bird, because the inside of its wing bones looks like those of flapping birds.1 2

?When did Inabtanin live?

It lived about 66 million years ago, at the very end of the Cretaceous Period.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Inabtanin
Named by: Rosenbach et al. 20244
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Azhdarchoidea4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)4
Rock formations: Muwaqqar4
Countries: Jordan4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Inabtanin was named in 2024 by Rosenbach and colleagues based on a partial skeleton found in phosphate mines in Jordan. The fossils were first reported in 2018.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly where Inabtanin fits in the pterosaur family tree, because it has a mix of features from different groups.1

Where the facts come from

Inabtanin (en.wikipedia.org)
New pterosaur remains from the Late Cretaceous of Afro-Arabia provide insight into flight capacity of large pterosaurs: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: Vol 44 , No 1 - Get Access (tandfonline.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Inabtanin 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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