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Dinosaur of the Day #40 - Dsungaripterus



Often known as the ugliest pterosaur ever thanks to its big head and upward-curving jaws, Dsungaripterus was a medium-sized animal. It hails from the Early Cretaceous of China’s Junggar Basin.

The only species in the genus, Dsungaripterus weii, was named by renowned paleontologist C.C. Young in 1964 on the basis of a well-preserved partial skull and skeleton. More complete remains were discovered from 1973 onward.

The wings of the animal had a 3.5-meter span, medium-sized for a Cretaceous pterosaur. It had a crest on its head, a possibly colorful skin extension supported by bone as shown in fossil skulls. It is the original member of the Dsungaripteridae, a family of strange pterosaurs with similar curved jaws and strong crushing teeth at the back of the mouth.

They are cousins of the azhdarchids and would have been similar to most their relatives. They were certainly quite adept walkers while they fed mostly from waterways, dipping for freshwater mussels, snails and other mollusks.

Dsungaripterus was, for the most part, a passive hunter. However its teeth might have been useful on small vertebrates as well, just nothing too large for the pterosaur to handle. Most of these pterosaurs had small torsos, thus limiting the size of the large prey that they could handle. Still, the sight of a group of these weird and beautifully adapted pterosaurs dipping into a mussel bank might have been an incredible sight to behold…

Rarity: Rare.
Tier: Omega.
Health: 3300.
Damage: 850.
Speed: 125.
Defence: 0%
Critical: 5%

Defense Shattering Strike.
Ferocious Strike.
Short Defense.
Armour Piercing Counter.
Swap in Ferocity.

So, thoughts on this pterosaur? Is it worth including on a team? Tactics and suggestions? What changes would you make and anything else you can think of?


Dsungaripterus has reasonable health but damage and speed feel low for what it is. It has some anti-shield and armour, coupled with a counter attack but it seems to be another pterosaur built around swapping in to gain any significant advantage. As with most pterosaurus I just think you have better options out there.


Handy in the lower arenas. Got a problematic armor dino? Switch in and catch the opponent off guard with the armor piercing counter. Combined with the swap in, it can be helpful.

Like most pterosaurs, it’s useless in the higher arenas, or even the middle arenas.

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I’m glad it isn;t just me who feels that way. I think they should be faster but not quite have the damage output, but have abilities that make you want to include them. Right now pterosaurs just don’t feel worth the inclusion most of the time.

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As far as pterosaurs are concerned, I had originally dismissed Dsungaripterus in favour of Pteranodon, since the latter has a higher speed and arguably a more useful move set (Nullifying Impact and Impact and Run as well as DS Strike). However thinking about it, Dsungaripterus has the potential to deliver a devastating amount of damage when it enters.

At Lv 26 it does 850 damage, if it’s swapped in that’s 1275 on the counter. Chances are that it will survive one hit and with a speed of 125 it has a good chance of out pacing most dinos so say it can then do Ferocious Strike first the following turn that’s 1700 damage, totalling 2975 before it inevitably bites the dust. To put that into perspective, a Lv 26 Draco Gen 2 using Swap in DSR does 2280 damage and it has less health. Not a bad entrance in my book, but then I’m biased.

Of course it goes without saying that I’m assuming no nullifying moves are used and that I’ve got my maths right.

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Musings of an Alliance Member Part 1

I guess it depends whether you can look at the dinosaurs of JWA with a competitive eye rather than just a casual one. I’ve never been good with games where some players can look at beyond the obvious. I always look at them as how they stand out on the screen.

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I am by no means a competitive player but I typically like to fully appreciate what I have to work with and as a result I go beyond the obvious. It doesn’t always pan out but it always gets me thinking.

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Dsungaripterus is possibly the worst pterasaur in the game besides Hatzagopteryx. I was gonna say that it had potential to be decent, but then I thought about how Ludia does these updates and then I thought “no.” Does anyone else think that this the that one pterasaur that we all forgot about?

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The 1.7 update increases Dsungaripterus damage from 850 to 900. Not a big increase so I think it is probably just in preparation for the stat boosting.