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 BMNH 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;[2] it was transferred to Ornithocheirus in 1870 by Harry Govier Seeley,[3] before becoming the type species of Lonchodectes in Reginald Walter Hooley's 1914 review of Ornithocheirus.[4] Confusingly, this species was also long regarded, incorrectly, as the type species of Ornithocheirus.