Pelagornithidae
| Pelagornithidae Temporal range: Late Paleocene – 58.7–2.5 Ma |
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| Replica of a Pelagornis miocaenus skeleton at the NMNH | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Subclass: | Neornithes |
| Infraclass: | Neognathae |
| Order: |
†Odontopterygiformes (see below) Howard, 1957 |
| Family: |
†Pelagornithidae Valid? (in view on page) Fürbringer, 1888 |
| Diversity | |
| About one dozen genera (but see text) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Family-level: |
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Order-level:
Odontopteryges Lambrecht, 1933
Odontopterygia Spulski, 1910
Family-level:
Cyphornithidae Wetmore, 1928
Dasornithidae Harrison & Walker, 1976
Gyphornithidae (lapsus)
Odontopterygidae Lydekker, 1891
Pseudodontornithidae Lambrecht, 1933
(but see text)
The Pelagornithidae, commonly called pelagornithids, pseudodontorns, bony-toothed birds, false-toothed birds or pseudotooth birds, are a prehistoric family of large seabirds. Their fossil remains have been found all over the world in rocks dating between the Late Paleocene and the Pliocene- boundary.
Most of the common names refer to these birds' most notable trait: tooth-like points on their beak's edges, which unlike true teeth contained Volkmann's canals and were outgrowths of the premaxillary and mandibular bones. Even "small" species of pseudotooth birds were the size of albatrosses; the largest ones were truly gigantic, and with wingspans estimated at 5–6 metres (15–20 ft) among the largest flying birds ever to live. They were the dominant seabirds of most oceans throughout most of the Cenozoic, and modern humans apparently missed encountering them only by a hair's breadth of evolutionary time: the last known pelagornithids were contemporaries of Homo habilis and the beginning of the history of technology.
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