Liaodactylus
Liaodactylus was an early pterosaur that used its long jaws like a strainer. It had more than 150 thin, comb-like teeth to catch tiny creatures in the water. This flying reptile lived about 160 million years ago in what is now China.1
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Fun facts
Liaodactylus is the oldest known filter-feeding pterosaur, living about 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic.1
Its skull was only 133 mm long, but it held 152 teeth in total, arranged like a comb to trap food.1
The name Liaodactylus means 'Liaoning finger', after the province in China where it was found.1
Liaodactylus belonged to a group called Ctenochasmatidae, which were all filter-feeders with long snouts and many teeth.1
This pterosaur lived alongside small dinosaurs, mammals, and salamanders in the Yanliao Biota of China.1
Liaodactylus had a large opening in its skull called a nasoantorbital fenestra, which is a feature of advanced pterosaurs.1
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Myth buster
Myth: Some people think all pterosaurs ate fish or meat.
Truth: Liaodactylus was a filter-feeder, straining tiny creatures from water with its comb-like teeth, not catching fish.1
For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Liaodactylus
- Named by
- Zhou et al. 20173
- Group
- Flying reptiles
- Family / clade
- Ctenochasmatidae3
- Classification
- Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea3
- Age of the rocks
- 162 to 155 million years (Oxfordian)3
- Rock formations
- Tiaojishan3
- Countries
- China3
- Fossil records
- 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
- Discovery
- Liaodactylus was named in 2017 by Zhou and colleagues based on a nearly complete skull and jaws found at Daxishan in Liaoning, China.31
- Still debated
- Scientists are not sure about the exact size of Liaodactylus because only its skull and neck bones have been found.1
Where the facts come from
- Earliest filter-feeding pterosaur from the Jurassic of China and ecological evolution of Pterodactyloidea - PMC (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- Liaodactylus primus | Pterosaur Database by DinoAnimals.com (dinoanimals.com)
- Liaodactylus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.
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Dorygnathus
Rhamphorhynchus
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Pterodactylus
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Compsognathus
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