Rhamphorhynchus muensteri (replica)
GRI #790-R
Rhamphorhynchus is an example of a long-tailed pterosaur. Although more than 125 generally well-preserved specimens of Rhamphorhynchus have been collected from the Solnhofen Limestone (Hone & McDavid, 2025), the exceptional specimen from which this cast was made (known as the Yale specimen) was the first to be described with impressions of wing membranes (Marsh, 1882). The structure of Rhamphorhynchus’ wing membranes was complex, consisting of an outer skin and two thin inner layers of muscles and actinofibrils arranged in three crisscrossing layers (Frey et al., 2003).
Because birds, flying insects, and dragonflies have been found in the same Solnhofen Limestone as Rhamphorhynchus, it appears that all these organisms were flying in the same general area at the same time. The arrangement and type of teeth in this pterosaur’s mouth, along with the beaked tip of its jaws, suggest it ate fish. This has been confirmed by the discovery of fish remains in the fossilized throat and gut contents of several Rhamphorhynchus specimens (Frey & Tischlinger, 2012; Hone et al., 2013).
Although Marsh (1882) described this specimen with species name of Rhamphorhynchus phyllurus, Bennet (1995) suggested that all the Solnhofen Rhamphorhynchus fossils belong to a single species, Rhamphorhynchus muensteri, with character variability related to size and ontogeny.
References:
Bennett, S.C., 1996. Year-classes of pterosaurs from the Solnhofen Limestone of Germany: taxonomic and systematic implications. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 16(3), pp. 432-444.
Frey E., Tischlinger H., 2012. The Late Jurassic Pterosaur Rhamphorhynchus, a frequent victim of the ganoid fish Aspidorhynchus? PLoS ONE 7(3): e31945. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031945.
Frey, E., Tischlinger, H., Buchy, M.C. and Martill, D.M., 2003. New specimens of Pterosauria (Reptilia) with soft parts with implications for pterosaurian anatomy and locomotion. In: BUFFETAUT, E. & MAZIN, J-M. (eds). Evolution and Palaeobiology of Pterosaurs. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 217(1), pp. 233-266. https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.2003.217.01.14.
Hone, D.W.E., McDavid S.N., 2025. A giant specimen of Rhamphorhynchus muensteri and comments on the ontogeny of rhamphorhynchines. PeerJ 13:e18587 http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.18587.
Hone, D.W., Habib, M.B. and Lamanna, M.C., 2013. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of Solnhofen (Upper Jurassic, Germany) pterosaur specimens at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Annals of Carnegie Museum, 82(2), pp. 165-191. doi:10.2992/007.082.0203.
Marsh, O.C., 1882. The wings of pterodactyls. American Journal of Science, 3(136), pp. 251-256.