''Spathagnathus'' (meaning "spatula jaw") is a genus of

ctenochasmatid Ctenochasmatidae is a group of pterosaurs within the suborder Pterodactyloidea. They are characterized by their distinctive teeth, which are thought to have been used for filter-feeding. Ctenochasmatids lived from the Late Jurassic to the Early ...

pterosaur from the

Late Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time scale, geologic time from 161.5 ± 1.0 to 143.1 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic stratum, strata.Owen ...

Solnhofen Limestone The Solnhofen Limestone or Solnhofen Plattenkalk, formally known as the Altmühltal Formation, is a Jurassic Konservat-Lagerstätte that preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, including highly detailed imprints of soft bodied organi ...

of Germany. The

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

and only species is ''Spathagnathus roeperi'', known from a single jawbone. It is the oldest known member of Gnathosaurinae, and the second pterosaur from the Solnhofen's Brunn quarry after the

rhamphorhynchid Rhamphorhynchidae is a group of early pterosaurs named after ''Rhamphorhynchus'', that lived in the Late Jurassic. The family Rhamphorhynchidae was named in 1870 by Harry Govier Seeley.Seeley, H.G. (1870). "The Orithosauria: An Elementary Study o ...

Bellubrunnus ''Bellubrunnus'' (meaning "the beautiful one of Brunn" in Latin) is an extinct genus of rhamphorhynchid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian stage) of southern Germany. It contains a single species, ''Bellubrunnus rothgaengeri''. ''Bell ...

''. The unique dental anatomy of the

taxon In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

is thought to indicate a diet of tough, hard-shelled prey items.

Discovery and naming

In 1993, Simone Kaulfuß, Maren Sendelbach and Andreas Heiner, students at the ''Schule für Präparationstechnische Assistenten'' in

Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...

, in the chalk quarry of

Brunn Brunn or Brünn is a common German place-name or place-name element which originally references a well, fountain, or source of a stream. It may refer to: Places Germany *Brunn, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a municipality in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern * ...

discovered a pterosaur snout. Starting in 1993, the quarry was systematically being excavated under the direction of Martin Röper and Monika Rothgaenger. Pterosaur finds were rare, with the exception of the type specimen of ''

''. The snout fossil was accessioned by the ''Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie'' at Munich. After preparation, it was preliminarily described by Oliver Rauhut and colleagues in 2017. These authors concluded that the specimen represented a novel species, likely a member of the Gnathosaurinae, and that it would be named in a later publication. In 2025, the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

''Spathagnathus roeperi'' was named and described by Alexandra E. Fernandes, Helmut Tischlinger, Monika Rothgaenger and Oliver Walter Mischa Rauhut. The genus name is derived from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''spatha'', "spatula", in reference to the shape of the snout, and Greek ''gnathos'', "jaw". The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours the late Martin Röper, erstwhile director of the

Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum The Bürgermeister-Müller-Museum is a natural history museum in Solnhofen, Germany. In 1954 the mayor, Friedrich Mueller, made his private collection accessible to the public. In 1968 the museum was officially founded by the Solnhofen municipali ...

Solnhofen Solnhofen is a municipality in the district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in the region of Middle Franconia in the ' of Bavaria in Germany. It is in the Altmühl valley. The local area is famous in geology and palaeontology for Solnhofen lime ...

Classification

In their

phylogenetic analysis In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical data ...

, Fernandes et al. recovered ''Spathagnathus'' as the

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

to the Uruguayan pterosaur ''

Tacuadactylus ''Tacuadactylus'' is a genus of ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Uruguay. Discovery and naming A snout found near Batoví was in 2016 reported as a saw fish, the oldest known member of the Pristidae. Subsequently, a CAT-scan ...

'' within the

subfamily Gnathosaurinae. These results are displayed in the

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

below:

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q134722511, from2=Q134722519 Late Jurassic pterosaurs of Europe Ctenochasmatoids Solnhofen fauna Fossil taxa described in 2025 Pterosaur genera