DinoFrontier
About Dimorphodon
Dimorphodon was an early pterosaur with a short neck, a long stiff tail and a strikingly large, deep head. It lived about 200 to 190 million years ago, at the very start of the Jurassic.
Its skull was large but light, built of thin bony struts around big openings. Its name refers to its two kinds of teeth: long fangs at the front of the jaws and many small, pointed teeth behind them.
Studies of its skeleton suggest Dimorphodon was a capable climber and a short-distance flyer that may have spent a lot of time in trees and on the ground, snapping up insects and small animals.
Dimorphodon facts
- Mary Anning, the pioneering fossil hunter of Lyme Regis, found the first skeleton in 1828.
- It was one of the first pterosaurs found in Britain.
- Its long tail probably ended in a small vane that helped steer in flight.
- Like all pterosaurs it flew on a membrane of skin stretched from a hugely elongated fourth finger.
Discovery
Mary Anning found the first partial skeleton in the Blue Lias cliffs at Lyme Regis in December 1828. William Buckland described it as Pterodactylus macronyx in 1829, and Richard Owen gave it its own genus, Dimorphodon, in 1859.
