Dino card No. 1500 of 2,027

Pterofiltrus

Say it: TER-oh-FIL-trus

Name means: “wing filter”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Pterofiltrus was a flying reptile that lived about 125 million years ago. It had a very long, narrow skull and lots of thin, pointy teeth that it used like a strainer to catch tiny animals in the water.1 2

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

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1 2

Food

Fish3 1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Pterofiltrus had about 112 teeth in its head, which is a lot for a pterosaur.1 2

Its teeth covered more than half of the skull length, about 55.8%.1

The skull of Pterofiltrus was very long, about 208 millimetres (8.2 inches).1 2

Pterofiltrus had no bony crest on its head, unlike some other pterosaurs.1

Its lower jaw was also long, about 174 millimetres (6.9 inches), and had about 27 teeth.1

The front teeth of Pterofiltrus were longer than the back ones and pointed partly sideways.1

AI-made picture of Pterofiltrus — An AI-made picture of how Pterofiltrus 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 Pterofiltrus

Rex only answers questions about this page. 3 questions a day.

Rex is an AI and can make mistakes. He runs on servers in the EU and questions are never saved. Never type your name or other personal things.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Pterofiltrus
Named by: Jiang and Wang 20114
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Ctenochasmatidae4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)4
Rock formations: Yixian4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Pterofiltrus was named by scientists Jiang Shunxing and Wang Xiaolin in 2011. The only known fossil, a skull and some neck bones, was found at Zhangjiagou in Liaoning, China.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how Pterofiltrus used its many teeth to catch food, but they think it may have strained small animals from the water.1

Where the facts come from

Pterofiltrus (en.wikipedia.org)
A new ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous, western Liaoning, China (dinosaurier-info.de)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Pterofiltrus 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.

Rex is hungry! Dino Wiki is a dad's project for his dino-loving son, free with no ads. Grown-ups can feed Rex a snack to help keep it online.Feed Rex