Dino card No. 1671 of 2,027

Sinomacrops

Say it: SY-no-MAY-crops

Name means: “Chinese large face, because it had big eyes and a broad face”1

Ate: InsectsFlying reptilesMiddle Jurassic to Late JurassicNot technically a dinosaur

Sinomacrops was a tiny flying reptile that lived about 160 million years ago. It had huge eyes and a short, rounded snout, and it probably fluttered between trees catching insects.1

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

Lived

165 to 155 million years ago3

Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic

Fossils found in

Mutoudeng, Qinglong County, Hebei Province, China1 3

Food

Insects1

Length

0.35 to 0.36 m1

estimated from skeletal measurements (skull length ~3.55 cm, total length ~35.5 cm)

Wingspan

up to 0.9 m1

Anurognathids reached up to 900 mm in wingspan

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How big was Sinomacrops compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Sinomacrops is known from a single crushed skeleton, but it is the first anurognathid skull seen from the side.1

Its lower leg bone, the tibiotarsus, was twice as long as its thigh bone, which is unusual.1

It had three closely spaced teeth in the front of its upper jaw, a feature unique to this species.1

Sinomacrops is the second anurognathid pterosaur found in the Tiaojishan Formation in China.1

Its closest relative is Batrachognathus, and together they form a group called Batrachognathinae.1

The fossil was found in rocks that are between 165 and 155 million years old, from the Middle to Late Jurassic.3

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

you asked

Most asked questions about Sinomacrops

?Was Sinomacrops a dinosaur?

No, Sinomacrops was a pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, but it was not a dinosaur itself.2

?How big was Sinomacrops?

It was tiny, but the exact size is not known because only one crushed skeleton has been found. It was small enough to flutter between trees.2

?What did Sinomacrops eat?

It probably ate insects. Its short snout and teeth suggest it caught bugs while flying, like other anurognathid pterosaurs.1

?When did Sinomacrops live?

It lived about 164 to 158 million years ago, during the Middle to Late Jurassic period.2

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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Sinomacrops was a dinosaur because it lived with dinosaurs.

Truth: Sinomacrops was a pterosaur, a flying reptile, not a dinosaur.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Sinomacrops
Named by: Wei et al. 20213
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Anurognathidae3
Classification: Pterosauria3
Age of the rocks: 165 to 155 million years (Callovian / Oxfordian)3
Rock formations: Tiaojishan3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Scientists named Sinomacrops in 2021 after studying a fossil found at Mutoudeng in China. The species name bondei honors paleontologist Niels Bonde.1
Still debated: Scientists still debate exactly where anurognathids like Sinomacrops fit in the pterosaur family tree, and whether they lived mostly in trees.1

Where the facts come from

Sinomacrops bondei , a new anurognathid pterosaur from the Jurassic of China and comments on the group (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Sinomacrops (en.wikipedia.org)
Sinomacrops 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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