page_title: Pteranodon
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Pteranodon / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Scale diagram for Pteranodon longiceps. Male (green) based on specimen YPM 2437. Female (orange) based on holotype specimen YPM 1177
context_page_description: Pteranodon is a genus of pterosaur that included some of the largest known flying reptiles, with wingspans over 7 meters. They lived during the late Cretaceous geological period of North America in present-day Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota. More fossil specimens of Pteranodon have been found than any other pterosaur, with about 1,200 specimens known to science, many of them well preserved with nearly complete skulls and articulated skeletons. It was an important part of the animal community in the Western Interior Seaway.
  Pteranodon was a pterosaur, meaning that it is not a dinosaur. By definition, all dinosaurs belong to one of the two groups within Dinosauria, i.e. Saurischia or Ornithischia. As such, this excludes pterosaurs. Nonetheless, Pteranodon is frequently featured in dinosaur media and are strongly associated with dinosaurs by the general public. While not dinosaurs, pterosaurs such as Pteranodon form a clade closely related to dinosaurs as both fall within the clade Avemetatarsalia.
context_section_description: Pteranodon species are extremely well represented in the fossil record, allowing for detailed descriptions of their anatomy and analysis of their life history. Over 1,000 specimens have been identified, though less than half are complete enough to give researchers good anatomical information. Still, this is more fossils material than is known for any other pterosaur, and it includes both male and female specimens of various age groups and possibly species.
  Adult Pteranodon specimens from the two major species can be divided into two distinct size classes. The smaller class of specimens have small, rounded head crests and very wide pelvic canals, even wider than those of the much larger size class. The size of the pelvic canal probably allowed the laying of eggs, indicating that these smaller adults are females. The larger size class, representing male individuals, have narrow hips and very large crests, which were probably for display.
  Adult male Pteranodon were among the largest pterosaurs, and were the largest flying animals known until the late 20th century, when the giant azhdarchid pterosaurs were discovered. The wingspan of an average adult male Pteranodon was 5.6 meters (18 ft). Adult females were much smaller, averaging 3.8 meters (12 ft) in wingspan. The largest specimen of Pteranodon longiceps from the Niobrara Formation measured 6.25 meters (20.5 ft) from wingtip to wingtip. An even larger specimen is known from the Pierre Shale Formation, with a wingspan of 7.25 meters (23.8 ft), though this specimen may belong to the distinct genus and species Geosternbergia maysei. While most specimens are found crushed, enough fossils exist to put together a detailed description of the animal.
  Methods used to estimate the mass of large male Pteranodon specimens (those with wingspans of about 7 meters) have been notoriously unreliable, producing a wide range of estimates from as low as 20 kilograms (44 lb) to as high as 93 kilograms (205 lb). In a review of pterosaur size estimates published in 2010, researchers Mark Witton and Mike Habib demonstrated that the latter, largest estimates are almost certainly incorrect given the total volume of a Pteranodon body, and could only be correct if the animal "was principally comprised of aluminium". Witton and Habib considered the methods used by researchers who obtained smaller mass estimates equally flawed. Most have been produced by scaling modern animals such as bats and birds up to Pteranodon size, despite the fact that pterosaurs have vastly different body proportions and soft tissue anatomy from any living animal.
  Other distinguishing characteristics that set Pteranodon apart from other pterosaurs include narrow neural spines on the vertebrae, plate-like bony ligaments strengthening the vertebrae above the hip, and a relatively short tail in which the last few vertebrae are fused into a long rod. The entire length of the tail was about 3.5% as long as the wingspan, or up to 25 centimeters (9.8 in) in the largest males.
caption: Size of P. longiceps male (green) and female (orange) compared with a human
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