Campylognathoides is an extinct genus of pterosaur discovered in the Württemberg Lias deposits (dated to the early Toarcian age[1]) of Germany; this first specimen however, consisted only of wing fragments. Further better preserved specimens were found in the Holzmaden shale; based on these specimens, Felix Plieninger erected a new genus.[2]
In 1858 Friedrich August Quenstedt named a new species of Pterodactylus: P. liasicus. It was based on a fossil, holotype GPIT 9533, consisting of some wing bones, found on the Wittberg near Metzingen in layers dating from the early Toarcian, about 180 million years old. The specific name referred to the Lias. Quenstedt thought he had identified long metacarpals in the wing, concluding that the new species was therefore not belonging to more basal genera, like the long-tailed Rhamphorhynchus.[3]
In 1893 commercial fossil collector Bernhard Hauff sr. discovered a skeleton of a large pterosaur near Holzmaden. In 1894 Felix Plieninger based a new genus on this specimen: Campylognathus. The genus name is derived from Greek kampylos, "bent", and gnathos, "jaw", in reference to the bent lower jaw. The type species is Campylognathus zitteli. The specific name honours Alfred von Zittel.[4] The holotype is SMNS 9787.
In 1897 Hauff prepared another specimen that eventually in 1903 was acquired by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History at Pittsburgh. This fossil, CM 11424, is due to its completeness the best source of information about the genus.
In 1901 Plieninger for the first time studied P. liasicus and discovered that Quenstedt had mistaken the, in reality short, metacarpal, for a coracoid, meaning it was a basal pterosaur.[5] In 1906 Plieninger referred P. liasicus and the Pittsburgh specimen to Campylognathus, though not yet establishing the specific status of each of the three exemplars.[6] In 1907 however, Plieninger recognised a second species of Campylognathus: C. liasicus, to which CM 11424 was referred also.[7]
Norwegian entomologist Embrik Strand discovered in the 1920s that the name Campylognathus had previously been used for the African bug Campylognathus nigrensis, a genus of the Heteroptera named in 1890. As the name was thus preoccupied, he renamed the pterosaur Campylognathoides in 1928.[8]