Editing Pteranodon (section)

==Paleoecology==
{{Main|Niobrara Formation|Western Interior Seaway}}
[[File:Cretaceous seaway.png|thumb|left|Map of [[North America]] during the mid-[[Cretaceous]] period, illustrating the [[Western Interior Seaway]] (middle to upper left) and other nearby seaways]]

Specimens assigned to ''Pteranodon'' have been found in both the [[Smoky Hill Chalk]] deposits of the [[Niobrara Formation]], and the slightly younger Sharon Springs deposits of the [[Pierre Shale Formation]]. When ''Pteranodon'' was alive, this area was covered by a large inland sea, known as the [[Western Interior Seaway]]. Famous for fossils collected since 1870, these formations extend from as far south as [[Kansas]] in the United States to [[Manitoba]] in Canada. However, ''Pteranodon'' specimens (or any pterosaur specimens) have only been found in the southern half of the formation, in Kansas, [[Wyoming]], and [[South Dakota]]. Despite the fact that numerous fossils have been found in the contemporary parts of the formation in Canada, no pterosaur specimens have ever been found there. This strongly suggests that the natural geographic range of ''Pteranodon'' covered only the southern part of the Niobrara, and that its habitat did not extend farther north than South Dakota.<ref name=bennett1994/>

Some very fragmentary fossils belonging to pteranodontian pterosaurs, and possibly ''Pteranodon'' itself, have also been found on the [[Gulf Coast of the United States|Gulf Coast]] and [[East Coast of the United States]]. For example, some bone fragments from the [[Mooreville Formation]] of [[Alabama]] and the [[Merchantville Formation]] of [[Delaware]] may have come from ''Pteranodon'', though they are too incomplete to make a definite identification.<ref name=bennett1994/> Some remains from Japan have also been tentatively attributed to ''Pteranodon'', but their distance from its known Western Interior Seaway habitat makes this identification unlikely.<ref name=bennett1994/>

[[File:Pteranodon with Cretoxyrhina tooth.png|thumb|''Pteranodon'' specimen with a ''[[Cretoxyrhina]]'' tooth embedded in a neck vertebra]] 

''Pteranodon longiceps'' would have shared the sky with the giant-crested pterosaur ''[[Nyctosaurus]]''. Compared to ''P. longiceps'', which was a very common species, ''Nyctosaurus'' was rare, making up only 3% of pterosaur fossils from the formation. Also less common was the early toothed [[bird]], ''[[Ichthyornis]]''.<ref name=carpenter2003/> Below the surface, the sea was populated primarily by invertebrates such as [[ammonite]]s and [[squid]]. Vertebrate life, apart from basal fish, included [[sea turtle]]s, such as ''[[Toxochelys]]'', the [[plesiosaur]]s ''[[Elasmosaurus]]'' and ''[[Styxosaurus]]'', and the flightless diving bird ''[[Parahesperornis]]''. [[Mosasaur]]s were the most common marine reptiles, with genera including ''[[Clidastes]]'', ''[[Mosasaurus]]'' and ''[[Tylosaurus]]''.<ref name="bennett2000" /> At least some of these marine reptiles are known to have fed on ''Pteranodon''. [[Barnum Brown]], in 1904, reported plesiosaur stomach contents containing "pterodactyl" bones, most likely from ''Pteranodon''.<ref name="brown1904">{{Cite journal |author=Brown, B. |year=1904 |title=Stomach stones and the food of plesiosaurs |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1447922 |journal=Science |volume=20 |issue=501 |pages=184–185 |bibcode=1904Sci....20..184B |doi=10.1126/science.20.501.184 |pmid=17737868}}</ref> Fossils from terrestrial [[dinosaur]]s also have been found in the Niobrara Chalk, suggesting that animals who died on shore must have been washed out to sea (one specimen of a [[hadrosaur]] appears to have been scavenged by a [[shark]]).<ref name="sharkbite">{{cite journal |last1=Everhart |first1=M.J. |last2=Ewell |first2=K. |year=2006 |title=Shark-bitten dinosaur (Hadrosauridae) vertebrae from the Niobrara Chalk (Upper Coniacian) of western Kansas |journal=Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science |volume=109 |issue=1–2 |pages=27–35 |doi=10.1660/0022-8443(2006)109[27:sdhcvf]2.0.co;2 |s2cid=86366930}}</ref>

It is likely that, as in other polygynous animals (in which males compete for association with harems of females), ''Pteranodon'' lived primarily on offshore rookeries, where they could nest away from land-based predators and feed far from shore; most ''Pteranodon'' fossils are found in locations which at the time, were hundreds of kilometres from the coastline.<ref name=bennett1992/>