Species
Three species of Campylognathoides have been named:
- Campylognathoides zitteli (Plieninger, 1894) is the type species.
- The larger Holzmaden Campylognathoides, C. zitteli, had a six foot (1.825 metres for SMNS 9787) wingspan.
- Campylognathoides liasicus (Quenstedt, 1858 )
- C. liasicus had a three foot wingspan, making it smaller than its Holzmaden contemporary, C. zitteli.
- "Campylognathoides" indicus (Jain, 1974)
- C. indicus was described by Sohan Lal Jain on the basis of a fragment of jaw, ISI R. 48, recovered from Chanda district, India. Kevin Padian considers this a nomen dubium, possibly based on a fish fossil. That the Kota Formation in which it was found, has since been redated to the Middle Jurassic or later, seems to preclude any close connection to Campylognathoides, even if it were a pterosaur.
The distinction between C. liasicus and C. zitteli is problematical. Plieninger merely recognised the smaller species because he considered its fossil too poor in quality to refer other specimens to. However, in 1925 Swedish researcher Carl Wiman, studying specimen UUPM R157, concluded that a fundamental morphological difference could distinguish the two species: C. zitteli has a proportionally much longer wing. In 2008 however, Padian pointed out that this might well have been a matter of ontogenetic development, larger individuals growing extra large wings to limit the wing load. Other differences, such as the larger number of teeth in the lower jaw, a longer snout and nares, five instead of four sacrals, perpendicular sacral ribs and a longer leg, might conceivably also be size-related. Final proof could only be given by a continuous growth series, as previously has been done in the case of Rhamphorhynchus and Pterodactylus. Provisionally Padian kept distinguishing two species, but moved two specimens to C. zitteli: SMNS 51100 and GPIT 24470, because of their larger size and morphological similarities.
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