Lonchodectes (meaning "lance biter") was a genus of lonchodectid pterosaur from several formations dating to the Turonian (Late Cretaceous) of England, mostly in the area around Kent. The species belonging to it had been assigned to Ornithocheirus until David Unwin's work of the 1990s and 2000s. Several potential species are known; most are based on scrappy remains, and have gone through several other generic assignments. The genus is part of the complex taxonomy issues surrounding Early Cretaceous pterosaurs from Brazil and England, such as Amblydectes, Anhanguera, Coloborhynchus, and Ornithocheirus. History and species Numerous species have been referred to this genus over time, and only those more widely connected with the genus are included here. The type species, L. compressirostris, is based on NHMUK 39410, a partial upper jaw from the Turonian-age Upper Cretaceous Upper Chalk near Kent. Richard Owen named in 1851 as a species of Pterodactylus; it was transferred to Ornithocheirus in 1870 by Harry Govier Seeley, before becoming the type species of Lonchodectes in Reginald Walter Hooley's 1914 review of Ornithocheirus. Confusingly, this species was also long regarded, incorrectly, as the type species of Ornithocheirus. A variety of postcranial remains resembling those of Azhdarchoids from the Cambridge Greensand have been referred to Lonchodectes; however, much of this material has since been referred to Ornithostoma. Formerly assigned species Hooley added two other species at this time, both of which had also been originally referred to Pterodactylus, then to Ornithocheirus: L. giganteus, a Cenomanian-age jaw fragment from the Chalk of Kent; and L. daviesii, another jaw fragment, from the Albian-age Gault Clay. "Pterodactylus" sagittirostris, based on NHMUK R.1823, a lower jaw fragment from the ?Valanginian-Hauterivian-age Lower Cretaceous Hastings Beds of East Sussex, "Ornithocheirus" platystomus, "Ornithocheirus" machaerorhynchus, and "O." microdon were assigned to Lonchodectes in a 2001 review by David Unwin of Cambridge Greensand pterosaurs. joining L. compressirostris, L. giganteus, L. platystomus, and L. sagittirostris in his listing of valid species. However, L. giganteus, L. machaerorhynchus, and L. microdon have since been assigned to a new genus, Lonchodraco, while L. sagittirostris has been renamed Serradraco. L. platystomus may be a species of Amblydectes. In 2020, a review of Lonchodectidae was conducted by paleontologist Alexander Averianov, where he reassigned the species L. machaerorhynchus to the genus Ikrandraco due to similarities in rostral morphology, as I. machaerorhynchus, and he also considered L. microdon a junior synonym of machaerorhynchus. Therefore, Lonchodectes is limited to