Istiodactylidae

Istiodactylidae is a small family of pterosaurs. This family was named in 2001 after the type genus Istiodactylus was discovered not to be a member of the genus Ornithodesmus.

Istiodactylidae

Mark P. Witton · CC BY 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
IstiodactyliformesPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Pterosauria
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pterosauria

Time the record covers

At least 30 million years on record.

The record covers at least 152.21 Mya to 121.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 113.2 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 0 of 8 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 8 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 7 of 8 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous169–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences165–164 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences164–162 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences162–160 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences160–158 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences158–156 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences154–152 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127–125 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–122 Mya — about 2 occurrences122–120 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences120–118 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences118–116 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences116–114 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences152.21 Mya121.4 Mya169 Mya112 Mya

8 occurrences of Istiodactylidae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

8 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

7 formations

Wessex — 50.66°N, 1.13°WWessex — 50.62°N, 1.38°WBlesa — 40.95°N, 0.77°WLa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WJiufotang — 41.57°N, 120.16°ECamarillas — 40.65°N, 0.88°WTiaojishan — 40.87°N, 119.99°EIlek — 55.97°N, 88.09°E

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The named rock units Istiodactylidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Istiodactylidae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Istiodactylidae and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

250 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Istiodactylidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

7 references

Each of the 8 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Istiodactylidae

Credit
Mark P. Witton
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Istiodactylidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itIstiodactyliformes through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Howse et al. 2001