Dino card No. 1735 of 2,027

Tacuadactylus

Say it: TAK-wah-DAK-tih-lus

Name means: “Tacuadactylus means 'Tacuarembó finger', named after the place where it was found and the Greek word for finger.”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate Jurassic to Early CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Tacuadactylus was a flying reptile that lived about 150 million years ago. It had a long snout with many small teeth, perfect for scooping up fish. It was one of the first pterosaurs ever found in Uruguay!1

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

Lived

155 to 143 million years ago4

Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Fossils were found in the Tacuarembó Formation in Uruguay, near Batoví and Bidegain.1 2

Food

Fish2 1

Wingspan

2.3 m3

estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How wide were its wings?

as long as 5 house cats nose to tail

How big was Tacuadactylus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Tacuadactylus was first mistaken for a sawfish! In 2016, scientists thought the snout belonged to an ancient fish, but a CAT scan showed it was actually a pterosaur.1

Its teeth were not straight up and down. They pointed forward and to the sides, which is unusual.2

Tacuadactylus had about 1.58 to 2 teeth per centimeter of jaw, making it a very toothy creature.2

It was the oldest known ctenochasmatid pterosaur from South America when it was named in 2021.1

The name 'luciae' honors the daughter of one of the scientists who described it.1

Tacuadactylus lived during the Late Jurassic, about 152 to 145 million years ago.1

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

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Myth buster

Myth: Some people might think Tacuadactylus was a dinosaur because it lived long ago and had wings.

Truth: Tacuadactylus was a pterosaur, a flying reptile, not a dinosaur. Pterosaurs are a separate group of reptiles.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Tacuadactylus
Named by: Soto and Montenegro 20214
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Ctenochasmatidae4
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea4
Age of the rocks: 155 to 143 million years (Kimmeridgian / Tithonian)4
Rock formations: Tacuarembó4
Countries: Uruguay4
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The first fossil, a snout, was found near Batoví in Uruguay and was initially reported as a sawfish in 2016. In 2021, scientists named it Tacuadactylus luciae after studying it more closely.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Tacuadactylus used its spoon-shaped snout and many teeth to feed.2

Where the facts come from

Tacuadactylus (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Tacuadactylus luciae | Pterosaur Database by DinoAnimals.com (dinoanimals.com)
Tacuadactylus 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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