Pteranodon
"Pteranodon" was the first pterosaur found outside of Europe. Its fossils first were found by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1870, in the Late Cretaceous Smoky Hill Chalk deposits of western Kansas. These chalk beds were deposited at the bottom of what was once the Western Interior Seaway, a large shallow sea over what now is the midsection of the North American continent. These first specimens, YPM 1160 and YPM 1161, consisted of partial wing bones, as well as a tooth from the prehistoric fish "Xiphactinus", which Marsh mistakenly believed to belong to this new pterosaur (all known pterosaurs up to that point had teeth). In 1871, Marsh named the find ""Pterodactylus oweni"", assigning it to the well-known (but much smaller) European genus "Pterodactylus". Marsh also collected more wing bones of the large pterosaur in 1871. Realizing that the name he had chosen had already been used for Harry Seeley's European pterosaur species "Pterodactylus oweni" in 1864, Marsh re-named his giant North American pterosaur Pterodactylus occidentalis, meaning "Western wing finger," in his 1872 description of the new specimen. He also named two additional species, based on size differences: Pterodactylus ingens (the largest specimen so far), and Pterodactylus velox (the smallest).
Stonesfield
The mines were also one of Britain's richest sources of Middle Jurassic vertebrate fossils. The first fossil bones to be identified as those of a dinosaur were found early in the 19th century near Stonesfield. They are part of the skeleton of a bipedal carnivore, and in 1824 the pioneering palaeontologist William Buckland named it "Megalosaurus". The bones are now displayed in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Other reptiles found at Stonesfield include the crocodile "Steneosaurus", pterosaur "Rhamphocephalus" and the type specimen of the theropod genus "Iliosuchus".