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Linlongopterus

Say it: lin-LONG-op-ter-us

Name means: “forest dragon wing”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Linlongopterus was a flying reptile that soared over ancient China about 120 million years ago. It had a long skull full of sharp, cone-shaped teeth for catching fish. This pterosaur was not a dinosaur, but a close cousin that ruled the skies.1 4

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

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Jianchang County, Liaoning Province, China2 1

Food

Fish4 1

Wingspan

4 m3

estimate

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 2 bicycles in a row

How big was Linlongopterus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Linlongopterus is known from only one partial skull and jaw, found in two pieces that had to be glued back together.1

Its eye socket was positioned lower on the skull than in most other pteranodontoid pterosaurs, a unique feature.1

The bones of its skull were not fully fused, suggesting this individual was not fully grown when it died.1

Linlongopterus had no crest on its snout, unlike many of its relatives such as anhanguerids.1

Its teeth were cone-shaped and gently curved, similar to those of Mimodactylus and Haopterus, but without a cingulum (a shelf-like structure).1

Scientists are not sure exactly where Linlongopterus fits on the pterosaur family tree, but most agree it belongs to the group Pteranodontoidea.1

AI-made picture of Linlongopterus — An AI-made picture of how Linlongopterus 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.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Linlongopterus
Named by: Rodrigues et al. 20154
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Pteranodontoidea4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)4
Rock formations: Jiufotang4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Linlongopterus was named in 2015 by a team led by Taissa Rodrigues, based on a partial skull found in the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, China. The species name jennyae honors Elfriede Kellner, mother of co-author Alexander Kellner.1 4
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Linlongopterus belongs to the family Mimodactylidae or is a more primitive member of Ornithocheiriformes.1

Where the facts come from

Linlongopterus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Linlongopterus jennyae | Pterosaur Database by DinoAnimals.com (dinoanimals.com)
Linlongopterus 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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