A Rhamphorhynchine Pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Chile.
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Pterosaurs first appeared in the Late Triassic, and persisted until the End of the Cretaceous. They are thought to have had a worldwide distribution for much of this time, however, their fossil record is somewhat patchy, which is thought to be largely due to the delicate nature of their skeletons, with the majority of known specimens coming from a relatively low number of fossil lagerstatten (sites producing fossils with exceptional preservation), the majority of which are in the northern hemisphere, particularly during the Jurassic, when almost all known specimens are from Germany, England, France, and China, the majority of them from the lithographic limestones of Solnhofen in Germany. All of these specimens would have lived on ancient Laurasia, while specimens from Gondwana, the Mesozoic supercontinent that made up the continents of the southern hemisphere, are much rarer. Some Pterosaurs are known from the Toarcian–Bathonian and Tithonian of Argentinian Patagonia, the lower Jurassic of Antarctica, and the Tithonian of Tanzania. In Chile, the Pterosaur fossil record compprises a few fragmentary specimens from the Lower Cretaceous, with two claims of Jurassic Pterosaurs from the Oxfordian Cerro Campamento Formation. However, one of these, initially interpretted as the incomplete skull if an indeterminate non-Pterodactyloid Pterosaur, was later re-interpretted as the dentary of a \Pachycormiform Fish. The other of these, however, appears to be the partial skeleton of a Rhamphorhynchine Pterosaur, a group widespread in the Jurassic of Europe, Asia, and North America.