Found by Mary Anning
She discovered it at Lyme Regis in 1828. It was the first pterosaur found outside Germany.
In the air · Flying reptiles
Dimorphodon
Two-form tooth · die-MOR-foe-don
A small flying reptile with a big, deep head, a long tail and two different kinds of teeth.
- Size
- Wingspan about 1.4m
- Lived
- About 195 to 190 million years ago
- Found in
- Dorset, England
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To scale
How big was it?
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Good to know
Six things about the dimorphodon
A head like a puffin's
Its skull was large and deep but very light, with big openings in the bone.
Two kinds of teeth
Long fangs at the front and many tiny teeth behind give it its name.
A good climber
Strong claws on its hands and feet suggest it scrambled about on cliffs and trees.
Not a fish-eater after all
Its teeth and jaws suggest it snapped up insects and small animals on land.
Short flights
With short wings for its weight, it probably flew in brief bursts.
The real thing
Photos of the dimorphodon
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
What it ate
Insects, lizards and other small animals.
How we know
The Dorset skeletons are in the Natural History Museum in London.
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