page_title: Timeline of pterosaur research
section_title: 1920s
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of pterosaur research / 20th century / 1920s
caption_attribution_description: English: Anurognathus ammoni, a pterosauria from the Upper Jurassic of Germany (Solnhofen limestone) hunting Kalligramma haeckeli. Deutsch: Anurognathus ammoni, ein Flugsaurier aus dem Oberjura von Deutschland (Solnhofener Plattenkalk) jagt Kalligramma haeckeli.
context_page_description: This timeline of pterosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of pterosaurs, the famed flying reptiles of the Mesozoic era. Although pterosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans evolved, humans have coexisted with pterosaur fossils for millennia. Before the development of paleontology as a formal science, these remains would have been interpreted through a mythological lens. Myths about thunderbirds told by the Native Americans of the modern western United States may have been influenced by observations of Pteranodon fossils. These thunderbirds were said to have warred with water monsters, which agrees well with the co-occurrence of Pteranodon and the ancient marine reptiles of the seaway over which it flew.
  The formal study of pterosaurs began in the late 18th century when naturalist Cosimo Alessandro Collini of Mannheim, Germany published a description of an unusual animal with long arms, each bearing an elongated finger.
context_section_description: 1920
  Wiman published a description of the fossils purchased by the Paleontological Museum in Uppsala, Sweden from C. H. Sternberg, which included Pteranodon fossils. He confirmed the presence of a fibula in some of the specimens.
  1921
  Friedrich von Huene described the new genus Rhabdopelix.
  1922
  Nopcsa described in detail and reconstructed Bassani's purported Triassic pterosaur from Italy, Tribelesodon.
  1923
  Döderlein described the new genus Anurognathus.
  1925
  Abel argued that pterosaurs would have to walk on all fours when not in the air, like a modern bat.
  1927
  Broili described possible fossil evidence for a hair like body covering in pterosaurs from Germany.
  1928
  Strand described the new genus Campylognathoides.
  Nessov described the new genus Bennettazhia.
  1929
  Bernhard Peyer discovered that the purported Triassic pterosaur Tribelesodon was actually a juvenile Tanystrophaeus, whose long neck vertebrae were mistaken for a wing-finger.
caption: Life restoration of Anurognathus
exif: {}