page_title: Lonchodectes
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Lonchodectes / Classification
caption_attribution_description: Reconstructed skull of Ornithocheirus compressirostris (now Lonchodectes).
context_page_description: Lonchodectes was a genus of lonchodectid pterosaur from several formations dating to the Turonian 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.
context_section_description: In Peter Wellnhofer's 1991 The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs, written before Unwin's work, the species were included within Ornithocheirus (because of L. compressirostris being thought to be the type species), and are in fact the main fossils illustrated to represent the genus. In 2003, Unwin placed them in their own family, Lonchodectidae, which he grouped within the group Ctenochasmatoidea, while in 2006, he placed the family Lonchodectidae within the Azhdarchoidea, the group that includes the tapejarids and azhdarchids.
  The cladogram below is a topology recovered by Longrich and colleagues in 2018. In their analysis, they placed Lonchodectes within the family Lonchodectidae as the sister taxon of Lonchodraco. Contrary to previous analyses, Longrich and colleagues placed Lonchodectidae (including Lonchodectes) within the more inclusive group Ornithocheiromorpha.
caption: 1919 Reconstruction of the skull by von Arthaber
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