#rhamphorhynchoid

[ildarotyrannus]

Portrait of the rhamphorynchid pterosaur Angustinaripterus longicephalus from the Middle Jurassic of Sichuan Province (China). This taxon is known from a single skull without a nape and the tips of the jaws. The length of the skull, according to paleontologist Peter Wellnhofer, reached 16.5 cm. The muzzle is long and straight, the front teeth are very large and form a fish trap with the mouth closed. The nostrils are elongated and slit-shaped, which is reflected in the generic name (the first part of it comes from the Latin words "angustus" and "naris", meaning, respectively, "narrow" and "nostrils"). The closest relative of Angustinarypterus is considered to be Sericipterus wucaivanensis from the Late Jurassic of Xinjiang. In this reconstruction, I depicted the pointed tip of the lower jaw, characteristic of rhamphorhynchids (especially the famous Rhamphorhynchus).

Adobe Photoshop, 2024.

[alphynix]

Wukongopterus lii was a pterosaur that lived during the mid-to-late Jurassic, about 164 million years ago, in what is now northeastern China. It was fairly small, with a wingspan of around 70cm (~2'4"), and showed a mixture of anatomical features in-between the long-tailed short-headed 'rhamphorhynchoids' and the short-tailed long-headed pterodactyloids.

Its long jaws were lined with tiny pointed conical teeth, suggesting it was adapted for primarily feeding on insects. It also had a very slight overbite, with the first two pairs of teeth in its upper jaw protruding almost vertically over the end of its lower jaw.

As a fully mature adult it would have had a low bony crest on its head that probably supported a larger keratinous structure – similar to other known wukongopterids – although the exact size and shape is unknown since the one confirmed specimen of Wukongopterus is missing that particular part of its skull. Another fossil nicknamed "Ian" may represent a second individual of this species, showing a different crest arrangement further forward on its snout, so I've made two different versions of today's image to reflect that possibility.

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NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Cheng, Xin, et al. "New information on the Wukongopteridae (Pterosauria) revealed by a new specimen from the Jurassic of China." PeerJ 4 (2016): e2177. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2177/supp-1

Garland, Nick. “Ian the Wukongopterid.” Pteros, https://www.pteros.com/pterosaurs/ian-the-wukongopterid.html

Wang, Xiaolin, et al. "An unusual long-tailed pterosaur with elongated neck from western Liaoning of China." Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências 81 (2009): 793-812. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0001-37652009000400016

Wikipedia contributors. “Wukongopterus.” Wikipedia, 8 Dec. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wukongopterus

XuanYu Zhou 周炫宇. Anatomy, Systematics and Paleopathology of Pterosaurs: insights based on new specimens from China. 2023. Hokkaido University, PhD thesis. https://doi.org/10.14943/doctoral.k1560

[percivalias]

Rhamphorhynchus was a pterosaur species from the late Jurassic and the namesake of the rhamphorhynchoid family. They spent most of their lives flying over coastal waters in what is today Germany.

On that pterosaur grind. I love these toothy fellas.

[pleistocene-pride]

Scaphognathus is a genus of pterosaur that lived throughout what is now Europe, particularly around what is now germany, during the Late Jurassic Period some 156 to 150 million years ago. The first known specimen, consisting of the forelimbs, the skull, rib cage and much of the vertebral column minus the tail, was recovered from the Solnhofen strata near Eichstätt by August Goldfuss. Who in 1831 mistook the tailless specimen for a new Pterodactylus species which he described as P. crassirostris. The specific name means "fat snout" in Latin. In 1858 Johann Wagner referred the species to Rhamphorhynchus. After recognising the fundamentally different snout shape, Wagner, after previous failed attempts by Leopold Fitzinger and Christoph Gottfried Andreas Giebel, who used preoccupied names, in 1861 named a distinct genus: Scaphognathus, derived from Greek skaphe, "boat" or "tub", and gnathos, "jaw", in reference to the blunt shape of the lower jaws. In the early twentieth century, the "rhamphorhynchoid" nature of S. crassirostris was recognized after the discovery of the second specimen in Mühlheim, whose long tail was preserved. The second Scaphognathus specimen was more complete than its predecessor, but only half the size (twenty inch wingspan) and with partially ossified bones, meaning it represented a juevenile. An additional adult specimen has since been recovered. Reaching around 2.5ft (.76m) long with a 3ft (.9m) wingspan. Physically it was very similar to Rhamphorhynchus, albeit with notable cranial differences. Scaphognathus had a proportionately shorter more robust skull with a blunter tip and a larger antorbital fenestra. Its teeth oriented vertically rather than horizontally. Comparisons between the scleral rings of Scaphognathus and modern birds and reptiles suggest that it would have been an active diurnal flyer whilst rhamphorhynchus was likely more nocturnal.

Art used can be found at the following links

[morenfjord-national-park]

What species of dragon have y’all got?

Quite a few species actually! The first and most important thing to note when it comes to Dragons, is that the term 'Dragon' is actually a bit of a misnomer! Dragon is the common name for 3 different families, True Dragons [Rhamphoanguidae], Wyverns [Venenumconspueridae], and Drakes [Pinnatastelionidae].

One of the most impressive species of Dragon at our park is the Greater Contrasting Screamer [Lophosampla ululatum]. They boast a nearly 15ft wingspan and run approximately 6.6ft beaktip to tail! Unlike dragons of myth, Screamers don't breathe fire, instead living up to their name with their impressively loud call. They almost rival the White Bellbird for volume, with their vocalizations able to reach 110 decibles! As their appearance might suggest, True Dragons are descended from Rhamphorhynchoids!

Not the most impressive but certainly one of the cutest species of Wyvern you can find walking around is the Lemon Streaked Wyvern [Veloxdoli trifur]. Their venom is a lot weaker than most other wyverns, so I wouldn't worry too much about one biting you. They're more interested in your sandwiches anyways. Still, you should probably head on down to a First Aid station if one DOES bite you. Wouldn't want you having a reaction to Wyvern spit!

Wyverns are descended from Scansoriopterygids.

My personal favourite has to be the drakes though, this one specifically! The False Chickadee Drake [Capelomens imimata] is one of the most common drakes around our park, but also arguably the cutest. They're about the size of rabbits and quite a few are docile enough that they'll eat right out of the palm of your hand! I can't in good faith recommend trying to pick one up though, it's against park rules (Ranger Lovelace would get on my case if I was telling people to pick them up) and you might just get a nice new coat of stomach acid on your shirt. Most drakes have some sort of acid regurgitation defense, and the False Chickadee is no exception! Extra fun fact, these drakes have the same colors as our state bird! They don't sound like them though. Drakes are descended from Archaeopterygids and run around a bit like raptors! I appreciate the interest in our dragons, they're actually my favourite group of critters to talk about! -Janne Bergstrom, Wildlife Technician

[catboybiologist]

Okay, so, I don't know how much specific interest you may or may not have in pterosaurs, I can't recall seeing you mention them before (but also my memory is... ummm...).

So basically, which gender are you, rhamphorhynchoid or pterodactyloid?

As with any favorite or binary choosing question, especially about gender and extinct life, I can't choose! But if I had to, I would choose rhamphorynchoids. They're honestly cute in a way, and so much more elegant than those dirty, clumsy looking, dopey pterodac- *stabbed*

Agh

Oh god

Oh no

Oh fuck

All glory to Pterodactyloidea.

All glory to Tapejara.

All glory to Hatzegopteryx.

All glory to Quetzalcoatlus.

All glory to Azhdarchoidea.

[skylerdrakon]

The Magnificent Langoon

the largest animal ever to fly the great lance dragon or langoon are giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs that rule over saikin with a serrated beak and powerful claws these animals are capable of hunting prey up to a ton or more in weight The langoon are most similar to the long extinct azdarchids in appearance and indeed hunt on the ground in a similar fashion yet perhaps surprisingly these animals are far closer to Genera like Harpactognathus than any Azdarchoid

These Giants of the skies are well known for their often dragon like behavior Its well documented that langoons will often steal pretty or shiny objects for a bower like nest structure which is utilized by males to attract mates in fact when the saikin subspecies was formally described in 1836 it was noted that females chose bowers that had the most impressive items with megafauna skulls and strange rocks being preferred by females

[tt-fmp]

Dinosaur Research

On my Mindmap I have chosen some things I am intending to research those being Horizon zero dawn, Jurassic park, Pterosaurs, Ark survival evolved, and Dinosaurs

Horizon Zero Dawn:

Horizon zero dawn is a post apocalyptic game where the world and its peoples tech have gone back to ancient tech like bows but with a more modern tech twist on it. A lot of the animals in horizon zero dawn are based upon dinosaur designs but are made mechanical, these animals are the main source of the devices and materials that the people in the game use.

I like the unquie designs of the animals in this game as the mechanical design is unquie compared to the normal repltilian design dinosaurs have.

Jurassic park:

Jurassic park is an a movie about a safari park on an island, where they have managed to bring back dinosaurs via dna sampling and modification from mosquitos. Throught the movie a bunch of the dinosaurs escape and start causing chaos on the island. The main dinosaurs in the movie are Trex, Velociraptor, Dilphosaurus, and Triceratops.

The dinosaurs in jurassic park have good designs which take a lot of insipration from what the dinosaurs were believed to look like at the time, a few of the dinosaurs were changed size, like the velociraptors were signicantly sized up as they are were relativly small in real life and the dilphosaurus which was sized down from its real counterpart.

Pterosaurs:

Pteosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles and are the first known vertibrates to gain flight. Pterosaurs are mainly split into 2 groups rhamphorhynchoids and pterodactyloids.

rhamphorhynchoids are generally indentifiable by a few key features being generally small, having broad wings, short necks, short and robust skulls, a large rear membrane, were poor on the ground and having long tails. rhamphorhynchoids are believed to be poor on the ground due to there large rear wing which held there back legs together making there mobility of the ground very limited, combining this info with their claws on there feet its assumed they spent a lot of there time in trees as they would be a lot better at climbing than they would be walking.

pterodactyloids are considerd the main group of pterosaurs and are the main one people think of. They are indentifiable by a few main features which are generally the reverse of the rhamphorhynchoids being large, narrow wings, long necks, long skulls often without teeth, a smaller rear wing, good on the ground and had short tails.

Ark survival evolved:

Ark survival evolved is an survival game where u are on an island with tons of prehistoric animals which u can tame, ride and many other things. The game involves animals from many diffrent periods across the mesozoic era and even later.

Arks animal designs intrest me as it has a wide variety of animals and designs to look at as it includes nearly 200 diffrent animals with unquie designs which can also get diffrent colours from the system in the game.

[nathan-e-rogers]

Solnhofen Sunrise 01

Late Jurassic, Europe

Compsognathus dinosaurs explore the early morning beach as Rhamphorhynchus pterosaurs fly by, perhaps returning from a night of fishing?

Made in Blender.

[actual-haise]

Despite it's immense size, the aptly named giant sauropod Supersaurus vivianae is dwarved in comparison to an approaching storm. This scene takes place in the Morrison Formation of Colorado, 153 million years ago.

[vensosaurus]

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

I noticed all the pterosaurs in PP were the toothless short-tailed variety. Did the long-tailed toothy ones already die out by the late Cretaceous?

Yep, and not just the long-tailed toothy pterosaurs, but almost all pterosaur groups seem to have gone extinct before the end of the Cretaceous! The only remaining pterosaurs (that we know of) were all pterodactyloids, or "short-tailed" pterosaurs. Most pterodactyloids did also have teeth (like Pterodactylus itself for example), but by 66 million years ago only two groups were left, both toothless, and those are the ones that show up in Prehistoric Planet.

There's Pteranodontia, which includes Nyctosauridae (represented in PP by Barbaridactylus and Alcione) and Pteranodontidae (represented by Tethydraco).

And there's Azhdarchidae, which is represented in Prehistoric Planet by Phosphatodraco, the unnamed Mongolian azhdarchids, Quetzalcoatlus, and Hatzegopteryx.

The long-tailed toothy ones used to be grouped together as "rhamphorhynchoids", but this is an unnatural grouping that lumped together early pterosaurs, dimorphodontids, anurognathids and rhamphorhynchids based on them being seen as "more primitive". It's not really a scientifically useful group, but yeah by the Maastrichtian stage of the Cretaceous everything that wasn't a pteranodont or an azhdarchid seems to have been gone.

[alphynix]

Caviramus schesaplanensis, a pterosaur from the Late Triassic of Switzerland (~205 mya). Known from two fossil specimens -- a partial jaw and a much more complete skull and skeleton -- it was about the size of a modern raven, with a length of around 60cm (2′) and a wingspan of 1.35m (4′5″).

(The more complete fossil is also sometimes considered to be a separate genus and species, Raeticodactylus filisurensis, depending on which pterosaur specialist you ask. If it was a different animal it still would have been very closely related to Caviramus, though, and the two would likely have looked very similar to each other.)

It had some odd anatomy for an early pterosaur, with proportionally long and slender limbs and a fairly heavily-built skull. There were bony crests on both its upper and lower jaws, with the upper crest probably supporting a much larger soft-tissue structure.

Powerful jaw muscles along with a combination of fang-like teeth at the front of its jaws and and serrated slicing-chewing teeth further back suggest it was specialized for eating particularly tough foods such as hard-shelled invertebrates -- and it may even have been omnivorous, capable of eating plant matter as well.

[thegenxorcist]

Orang Bati

The Orang Bati has an ape-like body, much like a human standing four to five feet tall, with red skin on its body. The creature has large black leathery wings and a long tail, compared to rhamphorhynchoid species of flying dinosaurs or pterosaurs. Some accounts describe the wings and tail as covered with thick black fur. Villagers often hear the Orang Bati's arrival by the sound of its shrill wail, similar to that of pterosaurs. The Orang Bati - Indonesia's Winged Man

[earthstory]

Let's meet the Pterosaurs for #Fossilfriday. They were flying reptiles that existed at the same time as the Dinosaurs, but they were in fact not dinosaurs - flying reptiles. Original caption:

"Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the extinct clade or order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger.

There were two major types of pterosaurs. Basal pterosaurs (also called 'non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs' or ‘rhamphorhynchoids’) were smaller animals with fully toothed jaws and, typically, long tails. Their wide wing membranes probably included and connected the hind legs. On the ground, they would have had an awkward sprawling posture, but their joint anatomy and strong claws would have made them effective climbers, and they may have lived in trees. Basal pterosaurs were insectivores or predators on small vertebrates. Later pterosaurs (pterodactyloids) evolved many sizes, shapes, and lifestyles. Pterodactlyoids had narrower wings with free hind limbs, highly reduced tails, and long necks with large heads. On the ground, pterodactyloid walked well on all four limbs with an upright posture, standing plantigrade on the hind feet and folding the wing finger upward to walk on the three-fingered "hand." They could take off from the ground, and fossil trackways show at least some species were able to run and wade or swim. Their jaws had horny beaks, and some groups lacked teeth. Some groups developed elaborate head crests with sexual dimorphism.

Pterosaurs sported coats of hair-like filaments known as pycnofibers, which covered their bodies and parts of their wings. Pycnofibers grew in several forms, from simple filaments to branching down feathers. These are homologous to the down feathers of birds and some dinosaurs, suggesting that early feathers evolved in the common ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs, possibly as insulation. In life, pterosaurs would have had smooth or fluffy coats that did not resemble bird feathers. They were warm-blooded (endothermic) active animals. The respiratory system had efficient unidirectional "flow-through" breathing using air sacs, which hollowed out their bones to an extreme extent. Pterosaurs spanned a wide range of adult sizes, from the very small anurognathids to the largest known flying creatures of all time, including Quetzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx, which reached wingspans of at least nine meters. The combination of endothermy, good oxygen supply, and strong muscles allowed pterosaurs to be powerful and capable flyers.

Pterosaurs are often referred to by popular media or the general public as "flying dinosaurs", but dinosaurs are defined as the descendants of the last common ancestor of the Saurischia and Ornithischia, which excludes the pterosaurs. Pterosaurs are nonetheless more closely related to birds and other dinosaurs than to crocodiles or any other living reptile, though they are not bird ancestors. Pterosaurs are also colloquially referred to as pterodactyls, particularly in fiction and by journalists. However, technically, pterodactyl only refers to members of the genus Pterodactylus, and more broadly to members of the suborder Pterodactyloidea of the pterosaurs.

Pterosaurs had a variety of lifestyles. Traditionally seen as fish-eaters, the group is now understood to have included hunters of land animals, insectivores, fruit eaters and even predators of other pterosaurs. They reproduced by means of eggs, some fossils of which have been discovered."

[albertonykus]

Is there a scientific term for the tail ornaments on rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs?

From what I’ve seen, they’re generally known (straightforwardly enough) as “tail vanes”.