Dino card No. 1339 of 2,027

Pachagnathus

Say it: PAK-ah-NAY-thus

Name means: “earth jaw”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Pachagnathus was a flying reptile that lived in what is now Argentina during the Late Triassic. It is one of the first pterosaurs ever found in the southern half of the world.1 2

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

Lived

227 to 206 million years ago3

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Quebrada del Puma locality, Quebrada del Barro Formation, San Juan Province, Argentina1 3

Food

Fish3

Top speed

about 52 km/h (32 mph)

Flying, estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How fast was it?

A person walking about 5 km/h (3 mph)

A kid on a bike about 22 km/h (14 mph)

Pachagnathus about 52 km/h (32 mph)

A galloping horse about 65 km/h (40 mph)

A cheetah about 100 km/h (62 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

Pachagnathus is known only from a piece of its lower jaw, which is 61.5 mm long and very narrow.1

Its lower jaw has a strange ridge that switches between a single line and a pair of lines between the teeth. No other pterosaur has this.1

Pachagnathus lived far from the coast, in a dry inland area. Most early pterosaurs lived near the sea.1

It was named in 2022, making it a very recently discovered pterosaur.1

Pachagnathus and its relative Yelaphomte are the only definite Triassic pterosaurs from the southern hemisphere.1 2

AI-made picture of Pachagnathus — An AI-made picture of how Pachagnathus 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: Pachagnathus
Named by: Martínez et al. 20223
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Raeticodactylidae3
Classification: Pterosauria3
Age of the rocks: 227 to 206 million years (Norian)3
Rock formations: Quebrada del Barro3
Countries: Argentina3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Pachagnathus was named in 2022 by Ricardo N. Martínez and colleagues. The only fossil, a piece of lower jaw, was found between 2012 and 2014 in Argentina.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure how big Pachagnathus was, because only a small piece of its jaw has been found.1

Where the facts come from

Pachagnathus (en.wikipedia.org)
The dawn of the flying reptiles: first Triassic record in the southern hemisphere (researchgate.net)
Pachagnathus 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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