Thus, it would seem to have been a native of the prehistoric North Sea, which at that time covered part of today's Germany and France, and sometimes was cut off from the Tethys and Atlantic Oceans, sometimes connected to them, and sometimes even to the Turgai Sea.
Situated a bit southwestwards — between 44° and 54° North — of its present location due to plate tectonics, in a fairly wet and warm epoch, the region had probably a warm-temperate to subtropical and fairly humid climate, altogether not too dissimilar from today's Black Sea region or French Mediterranean.
It appears to be somewhat similar to flamingos and was long placed with these, and thus would strongly suggest that the Phoenicopteriformes evolved in the Late Cretaceous of immediately thereafter.
As flamingos are now thought to be related to grebes,[1] the placement of Scaniornis requires reanalysis (Mlíkovský 2002).
The Hesperornithes which became extinct by the end of the Cretaceous and Scaniornis which appears clearly a neornithine are not closely related at all.