This is one of the lesser known pterosaurs, (or at least I hadn’t heard of it before!) with some of the more famous ones including Pteranodon and Quetzalcoatlus.
Quick stats:
- When: Aptian Stage of the Early Cretaceous
- Where: Isle of Wight in the UK, and China
- What: moderately large Pterosaur
- Meaning of name: sail finger
- Size: approx. wingspan 4.5m
- Diet: carnivorous, although some sources say piscivore
“File:IstiodactylusDB3.jpg” by Dmitry Bogdanov is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
In more detail
The Istiodactylus is moderately large Pterosaur. You might be wondering: 4.5m wingspan?! That’s not exactly what I class as small for a creature with the ability to fly! Well it turns out that there are Pterosaurs that are even larger than this, such as the Quetzalcoatlus and Pteranodon (briefly mentioned above). Of course, there were Pterosaurs that were smaller than this.
Let’s focus on the Istiodactylus now. It lived about 120 million years ago, with the first finding of this creature’s remains made on the Isle of Wight in 1887. So far, 6 different specimens have been found of Istiodactylus. It had quite a bird-like appearance compared with some other Pterosaurs, such as Ornithocheirus. Some sources say that the Istiodactylus was a meat-eater, but others say it was a piscivore. Maybe they normally ate fish, but in times of need scavenged off dead bodies. The name most likely refers to the wing, as the bone that formed the main structure of the wing on a Pterosaur was in fact an elongated finger. The sail part of the name signifies the membrane and skin of the wing, which creates a sort of sail-like structure.
Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals 
