#dorygnathus

[confusedhadrosaur]

Day 13: Dorygnathus banthensis

[michael-rosskothen]

Pterosaur Dorygnathus flying over a landscape

[saritawolff]

#Archovember Day 13 - Dorygnathus banthensis

Dorygnathus banthensis was a rhamphorhynchid that lived in the Early Jurassic of Europe, also in the time of the early Tethys Sea taking up most of the continent. (I did not realize I had put so many of these Jurassic archosaurs this close together when I made this list! We’ll be getting something from the Cretaceous tomorrow, don’t worry.) Like other rhamphorhynchids, it had a short neck, a long tail, and large interlocking fangs for catching and gripping wriggling fish. Wear on the teeth of some specimens suggest that they may have also fed on hard-shelled prey like mollusks and crustaceans. One specimen also contains preserved hairs, further evidence of pycnofibers or feathers in all pterosaurs.

Dorygnathus was more common in its environment than its contemporary Campylognathoides, and both have been found in marine deposits suggesting they regularly traveled over open sea. Dorygnathus would have lived alongside our previously visited Macrospondylus bollensis as well as other teleosauroids like Mystriosaurus, Pelagosaurus, and Platysuchus. It would have come across sauropods like Ohmdenosaurus, and flown over the variety of Early Jurassic ocean life like icthyosaurs, small plesiosaurs, early sharks, ammonites, and much more.

[antiqueanimals]

Pterosaurs, the Flying Reptiles. Written by Helen Roney Sattler. Illustrated by Christopher Santoro. 1985.

[clemence-dupont]

De tous petits dinosaures 

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Dorygnathus banthensis

By Joschua Knüppe, retrieved from http://www.pteros.com/, a website dedicated to education about Pterosaurs.

A reminder that we will not be able to do every pterosaur until we reach $240 in donations on our patreon, so please donate even a dollar if you can.

Name: Dorygnathus banthensis

Name Meaning: Spear Jaw

First Described: 1860

Described By: Wagner

Classification: Classification: Avemetatarsalia, Ornithodira, Pterosauromorpha, Pterosauria, Macronychoptera, Novialoidea, Breviquartossa, Rhamphorhynchidae, Rhamphorhynchinae

Dorygnathus is a close relative of Rhamphorhynchus known from the Posidonia Shale in Germany, living about 180 million years ago, in the Toarcian age of the Early Jurassic. As it wasn’t a contemporary of Rhamphorhynchus but rather a predecessor, it indicates the presence of this group of pterosaurs in Europe long before Rhamphorhynchus evolved. It is known from over fifty specimens that have been collected, and though multiple species of this genus have been assigned to it, only one remains valid at this point in time.

By Mark Witton, CC BY 4.0 

Like other early pterosaurs, it had a long tail, that may have had a vane at the tip. It had long, sharp, outward-pointing teeth in its jaws, that would have allowed it to catch fish, grasping prey and preventing it from escaping. It had a short wingspan, about 1.5 meters long, and a small sternum, indicating that it had a different method of flight than other pterosaurs. It lived alongside another pterosaur, Campylognathoides, and in a marine environment, alongside such animals as Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs. 

Sources:

http://www.pteros.com/pterosaurs/dorygnathus.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorygnathus

Shout out goes to @bookdexter!

[michael-rosskothen]

Pterosaur Dorygnathus flying over a landscape

[michael-rosskothen]

Pterosaur Dorygnathus flying over a coastal landscape