Pteranodon
"Pteranodon" was the first pterosaur found outside of Europe. Its fossils first were found by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1870, in the Late Cretaceous Smoky Hill Chalk deposits of western Kansas. These chalk beds were deposited at the bottom of what was once the Western Interior Seaway, a large shallow sea over what now is the midsection of the North American continent. These first specimens, YPM 1160 and YPM 1161, consisted of partial wing bones, as well as a tooth from the prehistoric fish "Xiphactinus", which Marsh mistakenly believed to belong to this new pterosaur (all known pterosaurs up to that point had teeth). In 1871, Marsh named the find ""Pterodactylus oweni"", assigning it to the well-known (but much smaller) European genus "Pterodactylus". Marsh also collected more wing bones of the large pterosaur in 1871. Realizing that the name he had chosen had already been used for Harry Seeley's European pterosaur species "Pterodactylus oweni" in 1864, Marsh re-named his giant North American pterosaur Pterodactylus occidentalis, meaning "Western wing finger," in his 1872 description of the new specimen. He also named two additional species, based on size differences: Pterodactylus ingens (the largest specimen so far), and Pterodactylus velox (the smallest).
Pteranodon
Some very fragmentary fossils belonging to pteranodontian pterosaurs, and possibly "Pteranodon" itself, have also been found on the 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. 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.
"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".