The holotype, CAMSM B 54556, had been found in a layer of the Cambridge Greensand dating from the Cenomanian but probably containing reworked fossils from the older Albian.
In 1869, Seeley also named a Ptenodactylus colorhinus,[REF] in 1870 a Ornithocheirus colorhinus based on the syntypes CAMSM B54431 and CAMSM B54432, both front snouts from the Cambridge Greensand.