Lonchodectes
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Lonchodectes Temporal range: Early-Late Cretaceous, 94 Ma |
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| Holotype jaw fragment | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Pterosauria |
| Suborder: | †Pterodactyloidea |
| Clade: | †Azhdarchoidea |
| Family: |
†Lonchodectidae Hooley, 1914 |
| Genus: |
†Lonchodectes Hooley, 1914 |
| Type species | |
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Pterodactylus compressirostris Owen, 1851 |
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| Species | |
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Lonchodectes compressirostris |
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Lonchodectes compressirostris
(Owen, 1851)
Lonchodectes (meaning "lance biter") was a genus of lonchodectid pterosaur from several formations dating to the Turonian (Late Cretaceous) of England, mostly in the area around Kent. The species belonging to it had been assigned to Ornithocheirus until David Unwin's work of the 1990s and 2000s. Several potential species are known; most are based on scrappy remains, and have gone through several other generic assignments. The genus is part of the complex taxonomy issues surrounding Early Cretaceous pterosaurs from Brazil and England, such as Amblydectes, Anhanguera, Coloborhynchus, and Ornithocheirus.
Numerous species have been referred to this genus over time, and only those more widely connected with the genus are included here.
The type species, L. compressirostris, is based on NHMUK 39410, a partial upper jaw from the Turonian-age Upper Cretaceous Upper Chalk near Kent. Richard Owen named in 1851 as a species of Pterodactylus; it was transferred to Ornithocheirus in 1870 by Harry Govier Seeley, before becoming the type species of Lonchodectes in Reginald Walter Hooley's 1914 review of Ornithocheirus. Confusingly, this species was also long regarded, incorrectly, as the type species of Ornithocheirus.
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