#ornithocheiromorpha

[alphynix]

Mimodactylus libanensis was a small pterosaur that lived in what is now Lebanon during the late Cretaceous, about 95 million years ago.

It was the latest-surviving known member of a group of pterosaurs called istiodactyliformes, closely related to the Chinese Haopterus.

The only known fossil specimen had a wingspan of around 1.3m (~4'3") — but it was still a juvenile and the full adult size of Mimodactylus is currently unknown. Its long narrow wings were shaped much like those of modern seabirds, suggesting it used dynamic soaring over the shallow sea and scattered islands that covered the region at the time.

Its fairly broad snout and strong pointed teeth may have been used to forage for shrimp at the water's surface similar to some modern albatrosses, a previously undocumented feeding style for pterosaurs.

———

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

References:

Kellner, Alexander WA, et al. "First complete pterosaur from the Afro-Arabian continent: insight into pterodactyloid diversity." Scientific Reports 9.1 (2019): 17875. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-54042-z

Wikipedia contributors. “Mimodactylus” Wikipedia, 23 Feb. 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimodactylus

Xu, Yizhi, Shunxing Jiang, and Xiaolin Wang. "The restudy of Haopterus gracilis from the Yixian Formation, Liaoning, China." Cretaceous Research 162 (2024): 105933. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2024.105933

[alphynix]

Fossils of pterosaurs are already rather rare due to their fragile hollow bones — and they're especially scarce in Australia, with only a handful of fragments known.

But recently a more complete one was discovered in central-western Queensland.

Ferrodraco lentoni ("Lenton's iron dragon") is named after the ironstone that the fossils were found in, and while it's known only from a partial skull, some pieces of its neck and wings, and various teeth, it's still by far the best pterosaur specimen ever found in Australia.

Living during the mid-Cretaceous, somewhere between 94 and 90 million years ago, it had a 4m wingspan (~13') and was also one of the very last of its kind. It was a member of the ornithocheirids, a group characterized by rounded crests at the tips of their long toothy jaws, which were previously thought to have all gone extinct by that time.

Many of Australia's Cretaceous animals were close relatives of those found in South America, due to an earlier land connection via Antarctica, but surprisingly Ferrodraco wasn't particularly closely related to any South American ornithocheirids. Instead it seems to have been part of a lineage known from halfway around the world in Europe, suggesting that these pterosaurs were capable of crossing long distances over oceans to disperse between continents.

———

Tumblr | Pillowfort | Twitter | Patreon

[alphynix]

New 'iron dragon' pterosaur found in Australia

The exquisitely preserved remains make up the most complete flying reptile yet discovered on the continent.