page_title: Ornithocheiridae
section_title: Locomotion and flight
hierarchical_section_title: Ornithocheiridae / Paleobiology / Locomotion and flight
caption_attribution_description: English: Coloborhynchus fluviferox (Pterosauria:Ornithocheiridae) from the middle Cretaceous of Morocco, North Africa. Pencil and charcoal on paper by Nick Longrich. Additional digital editing by Nick Longrich.
context_page_description: Ornithocheiridae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. These pterosaurs were among the last to possess teeth. Members that belong to this group lived from the Early to Late Cretaceous periods, around 140 to 96 million years ago.
  Ornithocheirids are generally infamous for having an enormously controversial and very confusing taxonomy. Although agreements that these animals were related, and therefore similar to istiodactylids and pteranodontians, there is still no virtual consensus over the exact content and interrelationships of this group. Ornithocheirids were the most successful pterosaurs during their reign, they were also the largest pterosaurs before the appearance of the azhdarchids such as Quetzalcoatlus. Ornithocheirids were excellent fish hunters, they used various flight techniques to catch their prey, and they are also capable of flying great distances without flapping constantly. The later existence of the crested pteranodontids made paleontologists think that ornithocheirids were their potential ancestors.
context_section_description: Similar to modern-day albatrosses, most ornithocheirids used a flight technique called "dynamic soaring", which consists of travelling long distances without flapping using the vertical gradient of wind speed near the ocean surface as an advantage, but the flight speed is moderate. Several studies showed that most ornithocheirids sprawled their limbs to a large degree, similar to crocodiles, while other studies however, conclude that ornithocheirids were generally quadrupedal. Yet other studies concluded that ornithocheirids held their limbs more or less vertically extended, similar to an avian- or mammal-like configuration. Some studies in the later genera, show that ornithocheirids spend much of their time sea fishing, and as a result, they perhaps influenced the later pteranodontids with the same piscivorous diet, as well as their well developed flight techniques. Analyses of limb proportions in the genus Anhanguera however, show that some ornithocheirids were consistent on hopping, but the later genera were suggested that they most likely walked on four limbs, which consists on their wing-fingers as the front limbs, and using their hind limbs to balance.
caption: Restoration of the species Coloborhynchus fluviferox
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