Pteranodontoidea

Pteranodontoidea Temporal range: Early-Late Cretaceous, 127–80Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Skull of Tropeognathus mesembrinus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Order:	†Pterosauria
Clade:	†Caelidracones
Suborder:	†Pterodactyloidea
Superfamily:	†Pteranodontoidea Kellner, 1996

Pteranodontoidea is an extinct clade of ornithocheiroid pterosaurs from the Early Cretaceous to the Late Cretaceous (middle Barremian to middle Campanian stages) of Asia, Europe, North America and South America.^[1] It was named by Alexander Wilhelm Armin Kellner in 1996. In 2003, Kellner defined the clade as a node-based taxon consisting of the last common ancestor of Anhanguera, Pteranodon and all its descendants. Ornithocheiroidea is sometimes considered to be the senior synonym of Pteranodontoidea, however its depends on it definition. Ornithocheiroidea was originally defined as an apomorphy-based taxon by Christopher Bennett in 1994. Later, Kellner (2003) redefined it to represent the node of Anhanguera, Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus and Dsungaripterus.^[2] Later, David Unwin (2003) suggested a different definition, the node that contains Pteranodon longiceps and Istiodactylus latidens, thus making Pteranodontoidea a junior synonym of Ornithocheiroidea.^[3] Brian Andres (2008, 2010, in press) in his analyses, converts Ornithocheiroidea using the definition of Kellner (2003) to avoid this synonymy.^[4]

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