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.
Mastodon
The first remnant of "Mammut", a tooth some in weight, was discovered in the village of Claverack, New York, in 1705. The mystery animal became known as the "incognitum". The first bones to be collected and studied scientifically were found in 1739 at Big Bone Lick State Park, Kentucky, by French soldiers, who carried them to the Mississippi River, from where they were transported to the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Some time later, similar teeth were found in South Carolina, which, according to the slaves, looked remarkably similar to those of African elephants. This was soon followed by discoveries of complete bones and tusks in Ohio; people started referring to the "incognitum" as a mammoth, like the ones that were being dug out in Siberia. Anatomists noted that the teeth of mammoth and elephants were different from those of the "incognitum", which possessed rows of large conical cusps, indicating that they were dealing with a distinct species. In 1806 the French anatomist Georges Cuvier named the incognitum "mastodon".