Dino card No. 1536 of 2,015

Rhamphocephalus

Say it: RAM-foe-SEF-uh-lus

Name means: “beak head”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesMiddle Jurassic to Late JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Rhamphocephalus was a flying reptile that lived during the Middle Jurassic. It soared over the warm seas of what is now England, snatching fish with its sharp beak. But scientists now think some of its bones actually belong to a different kind of reptile, a marine crocodylomorph!1

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

Lived

168 to 155 million years ago3

Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic

Fossils found in

Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom1 2

Food

Fish2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Rhamphocephalus was originally thought to be a pterosaur, but the type species, R. prestwichi, is now considered a thalattosuchian (a marine crocodylomorph).1

The name Rhamphocephalus was used as a 'wastebasket taxon' for many British Jurassic pterosaur remains, meaning it was a catch-all for fossils that didn't fit elsewhere.1

Fossils of Rhamphocephalus range from about 168 to 155 million years old, from the Bathonian to the Oxfordian stages of the Jurassic.2

Several species once placed in Rhamphocephalus, like Pterodactylus bucklandii, are now considered pterosaurs but not within this genus.1

The holotype (original specimen) of Rhamphocephalus prestwichi is just a fragment of skull roof, which made it hard for scientists to identify correctly.1

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

Myth buster

Myth: Rhamphocephalus is definitely a pterosaur.

Truth: The type species is actually a thalattosuchian (a marine crocodylomorph). The pterosaur species once grouped with it are now considered separate.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Rhamphocephalus
Named by: Seeley 18803
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Rhamphorhynchidae3
Classification: Pterosauria > Rhamphorhynchidae3
Age of the rocks: 168 to 155 million years (Bathonian to Oxfordian)3
Rock formations: Taynton Limestone, Cotswold Slate, Chipping Norton Limestone3
Countries: United Kingdom3
Fossil records: 10 in the Paleobiology Database3
Also known as: Dolichorhamphus (older names now counted as the same animal)3
Discovery: Harry Seeley named Rhamphocephalus prestwichi in 1880 based on a skull roof fragment found by Professor Prestwich in Gloucestershire, England.1
Still debated: Scientists are still unsure which pterosaur species belong to Rhamphocephalus, because many of the fossils are incomplete or poorly preserved.1

Where the facts come from

Rhamphocephalus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Rhamphocephalus 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.