A wingspan of seven metres
That is twice the wingspan of the largest flying bird alive, the wandering albatross.
In the air · Flying reptiles
Pteranodon
Winged and toothless · teh-RAN-oh-don
A large flying reptile with a long toothless beak and a long crest pointing back from its head.
- Size
- Wingspan up to 7m
- Lived
- About 86 to 84 million years ago
- Found in
- Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska and Wyoming, USA
Soars after you. Move your pointer and see.
To scale
How big was it?
The bars are drawn to the same scale. On these pages the animals are sized in proportion to each other as far as a screen allows: the giants are shrunk a little and the smallest are enlarged, so that you can see them all.
Good to know
Six things about the pteranodon
No teeth
Its name means winged and toothless. It scooped fish in its long beak.
Males had the big crests
Males were larger, with long crests. Females were smaller, with short ones.
It flew far out to sea
Its fossils are found in rocks that formed hundreds of miles from the nearest shore.
More than a thousand fossils
It is the best-known pterosaur of all.
Light as a person
For all its size, it probably weighed no more than a small adult.
The real thing
Photos of the pteranodon
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
What it ate
Fish, snatched from near the surface.
How we know
Fish bones have been found in the throat and stomach of some fossils.
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