Dino card No. 1627 of 2,027

Serradraco

Say it: SER-ah-DRAY-koh

Name means: “saw dragon”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesEarly CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Serradraco was a flying reptile that lived about 139 to 132 million years ago. It had a saw-like lower jaw and probably caught fish over the seas near England.1 3

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

Lived

139 to 133 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

St Leonards-on-Sea in Sussex, England, United Kingdom1 3

Food

Fish1 3

Wingspan

2.44 to 3.66 m2

estimate based on 50% larger than Lonchodraco's 8-9 ft wingspan

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

wings as wide as 2 bicycles in a row

How big was Serradraco compared to YOU?

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

cool stuff

Fun facts

Serradraco's name means 'saw dragon' because its lower jaw had a saw-like upper edge.1

The first fossils were just a pair of lower jaws, found by a collector named Samuel Husband Beckles.1

For a long time, scientists thought Serradraco belonged to other pterosaur groups, like Pterodactylus, Ornithocheirus, and Lonchodectes.1

A second specimen includes fused tail bones, a piece of jaw with teeth, and parts of a wing.1

Serradraco lived during the Early Cretaceous period, in the Berriasian to Valanginian ages.3

The teeth of Serradraco show microwear patterns similar to those of modern fish-eating reptiles, so it likely hunted fish.1

AI-made picture of Serradraco — An AI-made picture of how Serradraco 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: Serradraco is a dinosaur.

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

For dino experts

Scientific name: Serradraco
Named by: Rigal et al. 20173
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Lonchodectidae3
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea3
Age of the rocks: 139 to 133 million years (Berriasian / Valanginian)3
Countries: United Kingdom3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Richard Owen named the first fossils, a pair of lower jaws, as Pterodactylus sagittirostris in 1874. In 2017, Rigal, Martill, and Sweetman gave it the new genus name Serradraco.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Serradraco belongs in the family Lonchodectidae. Some studies say it does, while others suggest it does not.1

Where the facts come from

Serradraco (en.wikipedia.org)
Serradraco – DINOSAURS AND BARBARIANS (dinosaursandbarbarians.com)
Serradraco 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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