Anurognathidae

Anurognathidae is a family of small, short-tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe, Asia, and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Eight genera are definitively known: Anurognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Germany; Jeholopterus, Luopterus, Cascocauda and Sinomacrops, from the Middle to Late Jurassic of China; Batrachognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan; and Dendrorhynchoides and Vesperopterylus, from the Early Cretaceous of China. Bennett (2007) suggested that the holotype of Mesadactylus, BYU 2024, a synsacrum, belonged to an anurognathid, though this affinity has been questioned by other authors. Mesadactylus is from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the United States. Indeterminate anurognathid remains have also been reported from the Middle Jurassic Bakhar Svita of Mongolia and the Early Cretaceous of North Korea. Anurognathids had wingspans of up to 900 mm.

Anurognathidae

Zhao Chuang · CC BY 4.0 · 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
CaelidraconesPBDB
Diet
piscivorePBDB, for Pterosauria
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
marinePBDB, for Pterosauria

Time the record covers

At least 46 million years on record.

The record covers at least 168.2 Mya to 121.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 174.7 Mya to 113.2 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 0 of 9 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 3 of 9 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 4 of 9 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 9 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous176–174 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences174–172 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences172–170 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences170–167 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences167–165 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences165–163 Mya — about 1 occurrence163–161 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences161–159 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences159–157 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences157–155 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences155–152 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences152–150 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences150–148 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences148–146 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences146–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences127–125 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences125–123 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences123–120 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences120–118 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences118–116 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences116–114 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168.2 Mya121.4 Mya176 Mya112 Mya

9 occurrences of Anurognathidae on record, most of them in the Late 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

9 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

6 formations

Tiaojishan — 41.32°N, 119.24°ETiaojishan — 40.48°N, 119.37°EYixian — 41.60°N, 120.87°EBakkar — 45.00°N, 99.00°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°ESolnhofener Plattenkalk — 48.91°N, 11.38°EJiufotang — 40.65°N, 119.69°E

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

Anurognathidae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Anurognathidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

71 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Anurognathidae, 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

9 references

Each of the 9 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 Anurognathidae

Credit
Zhao Chuang
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Anurognathidae 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 itCaelidracones through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Nopcsa 1928)