 Altogether, the pseudotooth birds would have filled an ecological niche almost identical to that of the larger fish-eating pteranodontian pterosaurs, whose extinction at the end of the Cretaceous may well have paved the way for the highly successful 50-million-year reign of the Pelagornithidae.Like them as well as modern albatrosses, the pseudotooth birds could have used the system of ocean currents and atmospheric circulation to take round-track routes soaring over the open oceans, returning to breed only every few years.Unlike albatrosses today, which avoid the tropical equatorial currents with their doldrums, Pelagornithidae were found in all sorts of climates, and records from around 40 Ma stretch from Belgium through Togo to the Antarctic.