Mount Saint Peter
Around 1765 the skull of a "Mosasaurus" was discovered here in a limestone quarry, one of the first recognised reptile fossils, which was later acquired by the Teylers Museum in Haarlem. A more famous "Mosasaurus" fossil was found between 1770 and 1774 but was confiscated by the French in 1794 and is now in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. Later dinosaur remains were discovered here as well, belonging to "Betasuchus" and "Orthomerus", as well as turtles and fossils of smaller creatures of the sea.
Paleontology in New Mexico
In 1947, an American Museum field party led by Edwin Harris Colbert discovered a bonebed including the skeletons of more than 1,000 "Coelophysis" at Ghost Ranch. Later, in 1953 University of New Mexico graduate student William Chenoweth discovered three important sites where dinosaurs were preserved in Morrison Formation rocks. He found a fragmentary "Allosaurus", sauropods, and "Stegosaurus". Three years later, in 1956, mastodon teeth were discovered by a nine-year-old boy who was out hunting for Indian arrowheads. These well preserved teeth are now curated by the University of New Mexico Museum. During the 1960s, uranium prospector Rodney Peterson discovered a new fossil site west of Albuquerque. Actual paleontological excavation at the site would be several decades away, however.