Pteranodon longiceps

Qualiesin · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- PteranodonPBDB
- Diet
- piscivorePBDB, for Pteranodon
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Pteranodon
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Pterosauria
Time the record covers
At most 14 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 85.7 Mya and 72.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
23 occurrences of Pteranodon longiceps on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
23 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
3 formations
- Pierre Shale Formation · Montana Group14
- Niobrara Formation · Colorado Group8
- Sharon Springs Formation · Pierre Shale Group1
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The named rock units Pteranodon longiceps has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Pteranodon longiceps and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Pteranodon longiceps and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
6 taxa- Enchodus2 sites
- Nyctosaurus1 site
- Nyctosaurus bonneri1 site
- Protostega gigas1 site
- Toxochelyidae1 site
- Unktaheela specta1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Pteranodon longiceps, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
7 references- Pteranodon (Reptilia: Pterosauria): stratigraphic distribution and taphonomy in the lower Pierre Shale Group (Campanian), western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming14
- Morphology of the Late Cretaceous pterosaur Pteranodon and systematics of the Pterodactyloidea. University of Kansas3
- The taxonomy of the Pteranodon species from Kansas2
- A pteranodontid wing with traces of extensive invertebrate scavenging from the Pierre Shale (Sharon Springs Member, Campanian–Maastrichtian), east central Wyoming (Niobrara County)1
- Taxonomy and systematics of the Late Cretaceous pterosaur Pteranodon (Pterosauria, Pterodactyloidea)1
- A skull of Pteranodon (Longicepia) longiceps Marsh associated with wing and body bones1
- Notice of a new sub-order of Pterosauria1
Each of the 23 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3

Picture of Pteranodon longiceps
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Qualiesin
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Pteranodon longiceps · FHSM:vp:2183
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Gaming Assets
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPteranodon through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Marsh 1876)