Dino card No. 1286 of 2,027

Normannognathus

Say it: nor-MAN-og-nay-thus

Name means: “Normandy jaw”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Normannognathus was a flying reptile that lived about 150 million years ago. It had a tall crest on its head and a slightly upturned snout, making it look a bit like a dragon.1 2

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

Lived

152 to 149 million years ago4

Late Jurassic

Fossils found in

Normandy, France, near Le Havre1 2

Food

Fish4

Wingspan

1 m3

estimate

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 2 house cats nose to tail

How big was Normannognathus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Normannognathus had teeth all the way to the tip of its jaws, which is unusual for some pterosaurs.2

Its tall crest started right in front of the nostril opening and had a concave front edge, making it look like a wave.2

The crest was flat and ran along the midline of the upper jaw, and it may have been covered by a horny sheath.1

The fossil is only about 10 centimetres long, and it includes the front part of the skull and lower jaws.1

Scientists have changed their minds about where Normannognathus belongs in the pterosaur family tree, placing it in different groups over the years.1

It lived during the Kimmeridgian age, about 152 to 149 million years ago, in a marine environment.4

AI-made picture of Normannognathus — An AI-made picture of how Normannognathus 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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Myth buster

Myth: Normannognathus was a dinosaur.

Truth: It was a pterosaur, a flying reptile that is not a dinosaur.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Normannognathus
Named by: Buffetaut et al. 19984
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Lophocratia4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 152 to 149 million years (Kimmeridgian)4
Rock formations: Argiles d'Octeville4
Countries: France4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Jean-Jacques Lepage found the fossil in 1993 on the Normandy coast at Cap de la Hève, near Ecqueville. In 1998, Eric Buffetaut and colleagues named it Normannognathus wellnhoferi.1
Still debated: Scientists still debate exactly which group of pterosaurs Normannognathus belongs to, with different studies placing it in different families.1

Where the facts come from

Normannognathus (en.wikipedia.org)
A new pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Kimmeridgian of the Cap de la Hève (Normandy, France) | Geological Magazine | Cambridge Core (cambridge.org)
Normannognathus wellnhoferi | Pterosaur Database by DinoAnimals.com (dinoanimals.com)
Normannognathus 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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