Rhamphorhynchoidea

The Rhamphorhynchoidea forms one of the two suborders of pterosaurs and represents an evolutionary grade of primitive members of flying reptiles. This suborder is paraphyletic unlike the Pterodactyloidea, which arose from within the Rhamphorhynchoidea as opposed to a more distant common ancestor. Because it is not a completely natural grouping, Rhamphorhynchoidea is not used as a formal group in most scientific literature, though some pterosaur scientists continue to use it as an informal grouping in popular works, such as The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time by David Unwin, and in some formal studies. Rhamphorhynchoids were the first pterosaurs to have appeared, in the late Triassic Period. Unlike their descendants, the pterodactyloids, most rhamphorhynchoids had teeth and long tails, and most species lacked a bony crest, though several are known to have crests formed from soft tissue like keratin. They were generally small, with wingspans rarely exceeding 2.5 meters, though one specimen alluded to by Alexander Stoyanow would be among the largest pterosaurs of all time with a wingspan of 10 meters, comparable to the largest azhdarchids. However, this alleged giant Jurassic pterosaur specimen is not recorded anywhere outside the original Time article. Nearly all rhamphorhynchoids had become extinct by the end of the Jurassic Period, though some anurognathids persisted to the early Cretaceous. The family Wukongopteridae, which shows a mix of rhamphorhynchoid and pterodactyloid features, is known from the Daohugou Beds which are most commonly dated to the Jurassic, but a few studies give a Cretaceous date. Furthermore, remains of a non-pterodactyloid from the Candeleros Formation extend the presence of basal pterosaurs into at least the early Late Cretaceous.

Rhamphorhynchoidea

Creator: Dmitry Bogdanov · CC BY 3.0 · 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
PterosauriaPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Pterosauria
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pterosauria

Time the record covers

At least 35 million years on record.

The record covers at least 184.2 Mya to 149.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 199.5 Mya to 143.1 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 23 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 14 of 23 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 8 of 23 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 23 occurrences201–199 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences199–197 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences197–195 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences195–193 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences193–191 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences191–189 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences189–187 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences187–185 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences185–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences169–167 Mya — about 3 occurrences167–165 Mya — about 8 occurrences165–163 Mya — about 2 occurrences163–162 Mya — about 1 occurrence162–160 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences160–158 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences158–156 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 1 occurrence154–152 Mya — about 1 occurrence152–150 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences150–148 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences148–146 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences146–144 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences144–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences184.2 Mya149.2 Mya201 Mya142 Mya

23 occurrences of Rhamphorhynchoidea on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

23 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

11 formations

Isalo IIIb — 16.50°S, 47.07°EIsalo IIIb — 16.55°S, 46.98°ETiaojishan — 40.87°N, 119.99°EKayenta — 35.70°N, 111.01°WMorrison — 41.89°N, 106.00°WForest Marble — 51.87°N, 1.27°WToutunhe — 43.55°N, 87.26°ETendaguru — 9.70°S, 39.23°EMarnes de Dives — 49.33°N, 0.01°WArgiles d'Octeville — 49.58°N, 0.12°ECazals — 44.50°N, 1.32°ESüntel — 52.29°N, 8.71°E

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

Rhamphorhynchoidea and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Rhamphorhynchoidea and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

200 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Rhamphorhynchoidea, 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

15 references

Each of the 23 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. 3 further references are not listed. 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 Rhamphorhynchoidea

Credit
Creator: Dmitry Bogdanov
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Rhamphorhynchoidea 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 itPterosauria through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Plieninger 1901