Dimorphodon Facts-Jurassic Kratts

Here's some Dimorphodon facts from Jurassic Kratts-Dimorphodon Rescue, enjoy!

## Facts

***Dimorphodon*** /daɪˈmɔːrfədɒn/ was a genus of medium-sized pterosaur from the early Jurassic Period. It was named by paleontologist Richard Owen in 1859. *Dimorphodon* means "two-form tooth", derived from the Greek δι (*di*) meaning "two", μορφη (*morphe*) meaning "shape" and οδων (*odon*) meaning "tooth", referring to the fact that it had two distinct types of teeth in its jaws – which is comparatively rare among reptiles. *Dimorphodon* inhabited Europe.

## Palaeobiology

### Diet

The knowledge of how *Dimorphodon* lived is limited. It perhaps mainly inhabited coastal regions and might have had a very varied diet. Buckland suggested it ate insects. Later, it became common to depict it as a piscivore (fish eater), though biomechanical studies support Buckland's original insectivore idea better, and inconsistent with the animal's habits (see flight below). *Dimorphodon* had an advanced jaw musculature specialized for a "snap and hold" method of feeding. The jaw could close extremely quickly, but with relatively little force or tooth penetration. This, along with the short and high skull and longer, pointed front teeth suggest that *Dimorphodon* was an insectivore, though it may have occasionally eaten small vertebrates and carrion as well. Mark Witton has argued that the animal was a specialised carnivore, being too large for an insectivorous diet and therefore specialised to hunt small lizards, sphenodonts and mammals, though its relatively weak jaw musculature probably meant that it ate proportionally small prey. Dental microwear examinations confirm its status as a vertebrate predator, as opposed to several other insectivore or piscivore early pterosaurs.

### Locomotion

Like many pterosaurs, *Dimorphodon* has been perceived as a soarer in the past, correlating to historical perceptions of pterosaurs as seabird analogues. However, more recent studies show that the animal was actually a rather poor flyer: its wings are proportionally short in relation to the body and its skeleton rather robust, offering very little gliding potential. In life, *Dimorphodon* probably relied on frantic short flights in the same manner as modern fowl, tinamous and woodpeckers, being unable to fly for long distances and probably only taking to the air as a last resort.
Its derived position amidst primitive pterosaurs implies that this ineptitude is a developed trait, not an ancestral characteristic, as earlier pterosaurs like *Preondactylus* were capable aeronauts.

Owen saw *Dimorphodon* as a quadruped. He speculated that the fifth toe supported a membrane between the tail and the legs and that the animal was therefore very ungainly on the ground. However, his rival Harry Govier Seeley, propagating the view that pterosaurs were warm-blooded and active, argued that *Dimorphodon* was either an agile quadruped or even a running biped due to its relatively well developed hindlimbs and characteristics of its pelvis. This hypothesis was revived by Kevin Padian in 1983. However, fossilised track remains of other pterosaurs (ichnites) show a quadrupedal gait while on the ground and these traces are all attributed to derived pterosaurs with a short fifth toe. *Dimorphodon*'s was elongated, clawless, and oriented to the side. David Unwin has therefore argued that even *Dimorphodon* was a quadruped, a view confirmed by computer modelling by Sarah Sangster.

Like most non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs, *Dimorphodon* was a competent climber, possessing proportionally large and curved ungals and a low center of gravity. Like modern squirrels, it probably moved in a saltatorial manner as it climbed.