Ornithocheirus simus
via GBIF · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
- OrnithocheirusPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Pterosauria
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Pterosauria
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Pterosauria
Time the record covers
At most 13 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 106.3 Mya and 93.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Ornithocheirus simus 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
3 occurrencesThese 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
2 formations
- West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation · Chalk Group2
- Ifezouane Formation · Kem Kem Group1
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The named rock units Ornithocheirus simus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Ornithocheirus simus and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Ornithocheirus simus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
29 taxa- Aerodraco sedgwickii1 site
- Alanqa saharica1 site
- Anhanguera cuvieri1 site
- Anhanguera piscator1 site
- Apatorhamphus gyrostega1 site
- Camposipterus nasutus1 site
- Cetarthrosaurus walkeri1 site
- Chelone jessoni1 site
- Coloborhynchus1 site
- Galianemys1 site
- Gladioserratus aptiensis1 site
- Helochelys danubina1 site
- Ichthyosauria1 site
- Leptostomia begaaensis1 site
- Lonchodectes microdon1 site
- Lonchodectes platystomus1 site
- Lytoloma cantabrigiense1 site
- Nicorhynchus capito1 site
- Nicorhynchus fluviferox1 site
- Ophthalmosauridae1 site
- Ophthalmosaurinae1 site
- Ornithostoma sedgwicki1 site
- Plastremys rutteri1 site
- Platypterygiinae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Ornithocheirus simus, 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
3 references- New toothed pterosaurs (Pterosauria: Ornithocheiridae) from the middle Cretaceous Kem Kem beds of Morocco and implications for pterosaur palaeobiogeography and diversity1
- Seeley, 18701
- Monograph on the fossil Reptilia of the Cretaceous formations. Supplement no. III. Pterosauria (Pterodactylus) and Sauropterygia (Polyptychodon)1
Each of the 3 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 Ornithocheirus simus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- via GBIF
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ornithocheirus simus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itOrnithocheirus through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Owen 1861)