This list of pterosaurs is a comprehensive listing of all genera that have ever been included in the order Pterosauria, excluding purely vernacular terms. The list includes all commonly accepted genera, but also genera that are now considered invalid, doubtful ( nomen dubium ), or were not formally published ( nomen nudum ), as well as junior synonyms of more established names, and genera that are no longer considered pterosaurian. The list currently includes 273 genera.
There is no official, canonical list of pterosaur genera, but the most thorough attempts can be found at the Pterosauria section of Mikko Haaramo's Phylogeny Archive, [1] the Genus Index at Mike Hanson's The Pterosauria, [2] supplemented by the Pterosaur Species List, [3] and in the fourth supplement of Donald F. Glut's Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia series. [4]
The authors column lists the authors of the formal description responsible for the erection of the genus listed. They are not necessarily the same as the authors of the type species as sometimes a species from one genus is determined sufficiently distinct to warrant the erection of a new genus to house it. If this is the case, only the latter authors will be listed. The year column notes the year the description was published.
Naming conventions and terminology follow the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Technical terms used include:
The age column denotes the epoch of geologic time to which the fossils date. Genera that are invalid, misidentified, or otherwise do not represent a valid pterosaur are listed as age N/A because there was never a time in which a pterosaur by that generic name actually lived.
The location column designates the geographic region where remains of the relevant genus have been found. The regions used are continents except in the case of smaller landmasses (e.g. Cuba.) Political bodies, being non-existent in the Mesozoic are not used to indicate genera locations. Genera that are invalid, misidentified, or otherwise do not represent a valid pterosaur are listed as location N/A because there was never a place in which a pterosaur by that generic name actually lived. The notes column is a collection of annotations on the scientific significance and taxonomic history of listed genera, as well as elaborations on the information presented in other columns.
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Although pterosaur eggs are known, some with complete embryos, no oogenera have been erected to house them. The holotype of the oospecies Oolithes sphaericus was briefly considered by Harry Govier Seeley to be pterosaurian in origin, although this attribution was dismissed before the formal erection of that oogenus.
Cearadactylus is a genus of large anhanguerid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Romualdo Formation of Brazil, South America. Fossil remains of Cearadactylus dated back to the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous period, about 112 million years ago. The only known species is C. atrox, described and named in 1985 by Giuseppe Leonardi and Guido Borgomanero. The name refers to the Brazilian state Ceará, and combines this with Greek daktylos, "finger", a reference to the wing finger of pterosaurs. The Latin atrox means "frightful", a reference to the fearsome dentition of the species.
Anurognathidae is a family of small, short-tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe, Asia, and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Five genera are known: Anurognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Germany; Jeholopterus, from the Middle to Late Jurassic of China; Dendrorhynchoides, from the Middle Jurassic of China; Batrachognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan; 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.
Tapejaridae are a family of pterodactyloid pterosaurs from the Cretaceous period. Members are currently known from Brazil, England, Hungary, Morocco, Spain, the United States, and China. The most primitive genera were found in China, indicating that the family has an Asian origin.
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.
Pterodactyloidea is one of the two traditional suborders of pterosaurs, and contains the most derived members of this group of flying reptiles. They appeared during the middle Jurassic Period, and differ from the basal rhamphorhynchoids by their short tails and long wing metacarpals. The most advanced forms also lack teeth, and by the late Cretaceous, all known pterodactyloids were toothless. Many species had well-developed crests on the skull, a form of display taken to extremes in giant-crested forms like Nyctosaurus and Tupandactylus. Pterodactyloids were the last surviving pterosaurs when the order became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, together with the non-avian dinosaurs and most marine reptiles.
Brasileodactylus a genus of pterosaur from the Aptian-age lower Santana formation of Chapada do Araripe, Ceará, Brazil.
Eopteranodon is a genus of tapejarid pterosaur from the Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Beipiao City, Liaoning, China. The genus was named in 2005 by paleontologists Lü Junchang and Zhang Xingliao. The type species is Eopteranodon lii. A second species, E. yixianensis, was named in 2023.
Liaoxipterus is a genus of pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Barremian-Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of Chaoyang, Liaoning, China. The type species is Liaoxipterus brachyognathus. The genus name is derived from the discovery locality Liaoxi and a Latinised Greek pteron, "wing". The specific name is derived from Greek brachys, "short" and gnathos, "jaw".
Lonchodectidae or Lonchodraconidae is a group of pterosaurs within the clade Pterodactyloidea. It has variously been considered to be within Ctenochasmatoidea, Azhdarchoidea and Pteranodontoidea. They are notable for their high, conical tooth sockets and raised alveolar margins.
Ornithocheiroidea is a group of pterosaurs within the extinct suborder Pterodactyloidea. They were typically large pterosaurs that lived from the Early to Late Cretaceous periods, with fossil remains found all over the world except Antarctica.
Azhdarchoidea is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea, more specifically within the group Ornithocheiroidea. Pterosaurs belonging to this group lived throughout the Early and Late Cretaceous periods, with one tentative member, Tendaguripterus, that lived in the Late Jurassic period. The largest azhdarchoids include members of the family Azhdarchidae, examples of these are Quetzalcoatlus, Hatzegopteryx, and Arambourgiania. The Azhdarchoidea has been recovered as either closely related to the Ctenochasmatoidea, as the sister taxon of the Pteranodontoidea within the Ornithocheiroidea, or within the Tapejaroidea, which in turn was also within the Ornithocheiroidea.
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.
Pterosaurs included the largest flying animals ever to have lived. They are a clade of prehistoric archosaurian reptiles closely related to dinosaurs. Species among pterosaurs occupied several types of environments, which ranged from aquatic to forested. Below are the lists that comprise the smallest and the largest pterosaurs known as of 2022.
The Tiaojishan Formation is a geological formation in Hebei and Liaoning, People's Republic of China, dating to the middle-late Jurassic period. It is known for its exceptionally preserved fossils, including those of plants, insects and vertebrates. It is made up mainly of pyroclastic rock interspersed with basic volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Previously, the Tiaojishan Formation was grouped together with the underlying Haifanggou Formation as a single "Lanqi Formation." The Tiaojishan Formation forms a key part of the Yanliao Biota assemblage, alongside the Haifanggou Formation.
Archaeoistiodactylus is an extinct genus of wukongopterid pterosaur from the Middle Jurassic of China.
Dsungaripteridae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. They were robust pterosaurs with good terrestrial abilities and flight honed for inland settings, and were commonly interpreted as durophagous and possibly piscivorous pterosaurs. Fossils have been discovered from Early Cretaceous deposits in Asia, South America and possibly Europe.
Ornithocheirae is an extinct clade of pteranodontoid pterosaurs from the Early Cretaceous to the Late Cretaceous of Asia, Europe, North America and South America. It was named by Harry Seeley in 1870 as a family that contains Ornithocheirus and its relatives. The name was emended to Ornithocheiridae, to match the requirements of the ICZN Code that a family-ranked clade should end with an -idae suffix. Brian Andres (2010) in his review of pterosaur phylogeny, defined the name Ornithocheirae phylogenetically, as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of Anhanguera and Ornithocheirus and all its descendants. Thus Ornithocheirae is defined to include two families, the Anhangueridae and the Ornithocheiridae, following the opinion of Alexander Kellner and Andres that these families should not be synonymized based on their original phylogenetical definitions. However, subsequent studies in 2019 have found Ornithocheirae to be a more inclusive group containing both Anhangueria and Targaryendraconia.
This timeline of pterosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of pterosaurs, the famed flying reptiles of the Mesozoic era. Although pterosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans evolved, humans have coexisted with pterosaur fossils for millennia. Before the development of paleontology as a formal science, these remains would have been interpreted through a mythological lens. Myths about thunderbirds told by the Native Americans of the modern Western United States may have been influenced by observations of Pteranodon fossils. These thunderbirds were said to have warred with water monsters, which agrees well with the co-occurrence of Pteranodon and the ancient marine reptiles of the seaway over which it flew.
Ornithocheiromorpha is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. Fossil remains of this group date back from the Early to Late Cretaceous periods, around 140 to 92.5 million years ago. Ornithocheiromorphs were discovered worldwide except Antarctica, though most genera were recovered in Europe, Asia and South America. They were the most diverse and successful pterosaurs during the Early Cretaceous, but throughout the Late Cretaceous they were replaced by pteranodontians and azhdarchoids. The Ornithocheiromorpha was defined in 2014 by Andres and colleagues, and they made Ornithocheiromorpha the most inclusive clade containing Ornithocheirus, but not Pteranodon.
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