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Lonchodectes

Say it: LON-koh-DEK-teez

Name means: “lance biter”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesEarly Cretaceous to Late CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Lonchodectes was a flying reptile with long, narrow jaws that worked like a pair of sugar tongs. It snapped up fish from the sea with its many small, sharp teeth. This pterosaur lived about 94 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous.1

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

Lived

113 to 90 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous to Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

England, mostly around Kent, and the Russian Federation1 4

Food

Fish4

Wingspan

2 m3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

as long as 4 house cats nose to tail

How big was Lonchodectes compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Lonchodectes had jaws that were flattened from top to bottom, like a pair of sugar tongs with teeth.1

The name Lonchodectes means 'lance biter' because of its long, pointed jaws.1

Many fossils of Lonchodectes are just jaw fragments, so scientists are not sure exactly what the whole animal looked like.1

Lonchodectes belonged to a group of pterosaurs called lonchodectids, which are known from the mid-Cretaceous of England, China, and Russia.2

The type species, Lonchodectes compressirostris, was first named in 1851 as a species of Pterodactylus by Richard Owen.1

Lonchodectes probably had a crest on its lower jaw, like its close relatives.1

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

Ask Rex about Lonchodectes

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Myth buster

Myth: Lonchodectes is sometimes thought to be a dinosaur.

Truth: Lonchodectes was a pterosaur, a flying reptile, not a dinosaur.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Lonchodectes
Named by: Hooley 19144
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Ornithocheiroidea4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 113 to 90 million years (Albian / Turonian)4
Rock formations: West Melbury Marly Chalk, Gault, Melovatka4
Countries: United Kingdom, Russia4
Fossil records: 9 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The first fossils of Lonchodectes were found in the Upper Chalk of Kent, England. Richard Owen named the type species Pterodactylus compressirostris in 1851, and Reginald Hooley gave it the name Lonchodectes in 1914.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure how many species belong to Lonchodectes, because most fossils are just small jaw pieces.1

Where the facts come from

Lonchodectes (en.wikipedia.org)
Taxonomy of the Lonchodectidae (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea) (zin.ru)
PaleoCodex :: Lonchodectes (paleocodex.com)
Lonchodectes 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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