Apart from the skull, the skeleton of Istiodactylus was similar to those of other ornithocheiroid pterosaurs. The vertebral column, forelimb, and trunk bones were pneumatised by air sacs. The neural arches of the vertebrae had tall, sloping laminae. The notarium (a structure consisting of fused vertebrae in the shoulder-region of some pterosaurs and birds) consisted of six fused trunk vertebrae, with their neural spines fused into a plate, on which the shoulder blades articulated with a depression on each side. The main part of the sternum was very deep, with a bowed front edge and a shallow, triangular keel. The facets of the sternum that contacted with the coracoids were saddle-shaped and arranged asymmetrically. The humerus (upper arm bone) was stout and had a sharply curved deltopectoral crest. The forelimbs of istiodactylids were large, up to 4.5 times longer than their legs. The long wing-finger may have occupied 50 percent of the wing-skeleton. The hindlimbs were short compared to the forelimbs, and the feet were as long as the small third finger.
