Rhamphorhynchidae

Rhamphorhynchidae
Fossil of Rhamphorhynchus munsteri in the Musée d'histoire naturelle in Brussels
Temporal occurrence
Toarcian ( Lower Jurassic ) to Tithonian ( Upper Jurassic )
182.7 to 145 million years
Locations
Northern hemisphere
Systematics
Sauropsida Diapsida Archosauria Ornithodira Flugsaurier (Pterosauria) Rhamphorhynchidae
Scientific name
Rhamphorhynchidae
Seeley , 1870

Live reconstruction of Sordes pilosus

The Rhamphorhynchidae are a family of long-tailed pterosaurs whose fossil evidence was found mainly in the northern hemisphere in sedimentary rocks from the Lower to the Upper Jurassic .

features

The animals were small to medium in size. Their skulls were lower and more elongated than those of the Anurognathidae and Dimorphodontidae . The skull windows were small compared to the other two families. Usually the bony eye socket was the largest window in the skull. The teeth were single-pointed and either protruding, long and narrow or set vertically in the jaw and shorter. The tip of the jaw can be toothless and in the toothless species it may have been provided with a horn sheath.

Like all original pterosaurs, the Rhamphorhynchidae had relatively short metacarpal bones . The sacrum (sacrum) consisted of three or four fused sacral vertebrae . In the pool that's ischial (ischium) and the pubic bone (pubis) fused to Ischiopubisplatte, but by a small species with incision separately.

The end of the long tail of Rhamphorhynchus was provided with a vertical, rhombic or triangular tail sail . In Sordes only a thickening of the tail end can be seen, in all other Rhamphorhynchidae no tail sail can be detected.

Subfamilies and genera

• Rhamphorhynchinae
  • Angustinaripterus
  • Bellubrunnus
  • Dorygnathus
  • Nesodactylus
  • Rhamphocephalus
  • Rhamphorhynchus
• Scaphognathinae
  • Cacibupteryx
  • Harpactognathus
  • Pterorhynchus
  • Scaphognathus
  • Sordes

swell

• David M. Unwin: The Pterosaurs. From deep time. PI Press, New York NY 2006, ISBN 0-13-146308-X .
• Peter Wellnhofer : Pterosaurs. Pterosauria (= The new Brehm library. Vol. 534, ISSN  0138-1423 ). A. Ziemsen Verlag, Wittenberg Lutherstadt 1980.

1. ^ The Paleobiology Database

Web links

Commons : Rhamphorhynchidae  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Pterosaur Database (English)