Dino card No. 1489 of 2,015

Pteranodon

Say it: ter-AN-oh-don

Name means: “winged toothless”1

Ate: FishFlying reptilesLate CretaceousNot technically a dinosaur

Pteranodon was a huge flying reptile that soared over an ancient sea. It had a big crest on its head and no teeth, but it caught fish with its long beak.1

Fun fact: pterosaurs flew over the dinosaurs, but they were their cousins, not dinosaurs themselves.

Lived

90 to 72 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Kansas, South Dakota, and Wyoming, USA1 3

Food

Fish1

Length

3 to 6 m1

estimated, includes the beak and body

Wingspan

3 to 7 m1

Weight

20 kg to 93 kg1

Artist's life restoration of Pteranodon — How Pteranodon may have looked, by Matt Martyniuk. CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Pteranodon was not a dinosaur, but a flying reptile called a pterosaur.1

Males had a huge, backward-pointing crest on their skull, while females had a smaller crest.1

It lived during the Late Cretaceous, about 88 to 80 million years ago.1

Pteranodon flew over the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow sea that split North America in two.1

More than 1,100 specimens of Pteranodon have been found, making it one of the best-known pterosaurs.2

Its wings were made of skin stretched between a long fourth finger and its body.1

Myth buster

Myth: Pteranodon is often called a dinosaur.

Truth: Pteranodon was a pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived at the same time as dinosaurs but was not a dinosaur.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Pteranodon
Named by: Marsh 18763
Group: Flying reptiles
Family / clade: Pteranodontia3
Classification: Pterosauria > Pterodactyloidea3
Age of the rocks: 90 to 72 million years (Coniacian to Campanian)3
Rock formations: Niobrara, Pierre Shale, Merchantville3
Countries: USA3
Fossil records: 43 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Othniel Charles Marsh named Pteranodon in 1876 based on fossils from Kansas, USA.3 1
Still debated: Scientists still debate exactly how many species of Pteranodon existed, with some recognizing only two valid species.2

Where the facts come from

Pteranodon (en.wikipedia.org)
ia801304.us.archive.org (ia801304.us.archive.org)
Pteranodon in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.