Where was the first Pteranodon fossil found?
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).
Leptoceratops
The first small ceratopsian named "Leptoceratops" was discovered in 1910 by Barnum Brown in the Red Deer Valley in Alberta, Canada. He described it four years later. The first specimen had a part of its skull missing, but there were later well-preserved finds by C. M. Sternberg in 1947, including one complete fossil. Later material was found in 1978 in the Bighorn Basin of northern Wyoming.
Megalosaurus
"Megalosaurus" may have been the first dinosaur, apart from modern birds, to be described in the scientific literature. Part of a bone was recovered from the Taynton Limestone Formation of Stonesfield limestone quarry, Oxfordshire in 1676. Sir Thomas Pennyson gave the fragment to Robert Plot, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and first curator of the Ashmolean Museum, who published a description and illustration in his "Natural History of Oxfordshire" in 1676. It was the first illustration of a dinosaur bone published. Plot correctly identified the bone as the lower extremity of the thighbone or femur of a large animal and he recognized that it was too large to belong to any species known to be living in England. He therefore at first concluded it to be the thighbone of a Roman war elephant and later that of a giant human, such as those mentioned in the Bible. The bone has since been lost, but the illustration is detailed enough that some have since identified it as that of "Megalosaurus".
Eopteranodon
Eopteranodon (meaning "dawn "Pteranodon" (toothless wing)") is a genus of azhdarchoid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Aptian-age Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Beipaio City, Liaoning, China. The genus was in 2005 named by Lü Junchang and Zhang Xingliao. The type species is Eopteranodon lii.
Uranocentrodon
Fossils of the animal now known as "Uranocentrodon" were first discovered in a sandstone quarry near Senekal in Free State, South Africa. The first example of these fossils was a fragmentary skull excavated by a local family. Subsequent excavations and searches undertaken by various parties unearthed more specimens which hailed from the quarry. Among these specimens included three nearly complete skeletons overlapping each other. The initial skull was determined to belong to the same individual as one of the skeletons. The skull and three skeletons were acquired by the Transvaal Museum and given the designations TM 75, TM 75d, and TM75h by E.C.N. van Hoepen. In 1911, he gave the formal name "Myriodon senekalensis" to the specimens by means of a brief description published in Dutch. He published a more comprehensive description a few years later in 1915. Two additional skulls were mentioned in this description, although their whereabouts are currently unknown. In 1917 it was determined that the name "Myriodon" was already in use by a genus of fish, and that a new name had to be used. Thus, van Hoepen renamed "Myriodon senekalensis" to "Uranocentrodon senekalensis", which roughly translates to "prickle-toothed palate of Senekal". The original Transvaal Museum specimens have collectively been termed the syntypes of "Uranocentrodon".
History of Plymouth
The earliest human remains in the Plymouth area are from a number of caves around Plymouth Sound. The 'bone caves', located at Cattedown, Oreston, Turnchapel and Stonehouse, contain extensive Upper Palaeolithic deposits, including those of "Homo sapiens", some of the earliest such evidence in England. A reindeer bone from one of the Cattedown caves is dated 15,125 ± 390 years B.P. There is no public access to the caves, and they are not easily locatable or visitable. However their archaeological importance is very great, owing to both the geographical location of the Cattedown discovery, in a European context, and to the quantitative and qualitative nature and physical disposition of the human remains; this is one of the most important discoveries for the early history of anatomically modern humans in Europe. There is currently no evidence of "Homo neanderthalensis" having been found in caves at Cattedown, Oreston, Stonehouse or Mount Batten (Turnchapel).
Thalassodromeus
The first known "Thalassodromeus" specimen was collected in 1983 near the town of Santana do Cariri in the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil. Found in outcrops of the Romualdo Formation, it was collected over a long period of time in several pieces. The specimen (catalogued as DGM 1476-R at the Museu de Ciências da Terra) was preserved in a calcareous nodule, and consists of an almost-complete, three-dimensional skull (pterosaur bones are often flattened compression fossils), missing two segments of the bottom of the skull and mandible and the front of the lower jaw. The left jugal region and right mandibular ramus (half of the mandible) are pushed slightly inward. The skull was first reported in a 1984 Italian book, and preliminarily described and figured in 1990 by palaeontologists Alexander W. A. Kellner and Diogenes de Almeida Campos. Although the pieces of skull had been divided between museums in South and North America, they were assembled before 2002.
In 2002, Kellner and Campos described and named the new genus and species "Thalassodromeus sethi", skull DGM 1476-R being the holotype specimen. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek words θάλασσα ("thálassa", "sea") and δρομεύς ("dromeús", "runner"), meaning "sea runner" in reference to the animal's supposed skim-feeding behaviour. The specific name refers to the ancient Egyptian god Seth. The specimen was not fully prepared at the time of this preliminary description. The original describers chose the name "sethi" because the crest of the pterosaur was supposedly reminiscent of the crown worn by Seth; however, the palaeontologists André Jacques Veldmeijer, Marco Signore, and Hanneke J. M. Meijer pointed out in 2005 that the crown (with its two tall plumes) was typically worn by the god Amon (or Amon-Ra) and his manifestations—not by Seth.
Glyptodon
Although Darwin is said to have found the first fossils of glyptodontines (the subfamily), the first mention of the genus "Glyptodon" in Europe was in 1823, from the first edition of Cuvier's "Ossemens Fossiles". The then unnamed "Glyptodon" was briefly mentioned in a letter from Dámaso Antonio Larrañaga. He had found "a femur... It was about seven pounds, and maybe six or eight inches wide", as well as part of a tail. At the time, the discovery was believed to have belonged to "Megatherium", a type of giant ground sloth. A man named Sellow found some carapace plates in three-foot deep clay in Uruguay four years later. That discovery only made the professors even more certain that the discoveries were of "Megatherium", since the bones of this prehistoric giant sloth were usually found in similar conditions and Cuvier had said that the genus was loricated.
Weald
Many important fossils have been found in the sandstones and clays of the Weald, including, for example, "Baryonyx". The famous scientific hoax of Piltdown Man was claimed to have come from a gravel pit at Piltdown near Uckfield. The first "Iguanodon" was identified after a Mary Mantell unearthed some fossilised teeth by a road in Sussex in 1822. Her husband, Gideon Mantell, noticed they were similar to modern iguana teeth but many times larger; this important find led to the discovery of dinosaurs.
Lavernock
In June 2015 it was announced that the fossil remains of a new species of dinosaur had been discovered on the beach by brothers Nick and Rob Hanigan. The fossilised skeleton belonged to a dog-sized creature, a theropod dinosaur, and was described as a "cousin of the giant tyrannosaurus rex". It is believed to be the earliest specimen of a to have walked the earth.
Strathcona Fiord
The first High Arctic terrestrial fossil vertebrates were discovered in 1975, in the Strathcona Fiord by a team led by Mary Dawson from the Carnegie Museum. These earliest finds include the fossil remains of an alligator, considered to be "Allognathosuchus", and also small arboreal mammals called "plagiomenids". Since then, field expeditions in Strathcona Fiord have yielded a much more complete picture of the biodiversity of the Eocene Arctic. Although, Eocene fossil vertebrates are known from other areas on Ellesmere Island (e.g., Stenkul Fiord), and Axel Heiberg Island, Strathcona Fiord has yielded the richest vertebrate fossil record.
Paleontology in Massachusetts
Among the earliest major fossil discoveries in Massachusetts occurred during the spring of 1802. Pliny Moody had uncovered a piece of reddish sandstone with bird-like three toed footprints while ploughing on his father's farm in South Hadley. More fossil footprints were discovered a few decades later, in 1835. At the time, Greenfield Massachusetts was paving when residents noticed footprints on the sandstone slabs that resembled those of turkeys. The rocks used in the project had been excavated at Turners Falls. This location would turn out to be the most productive dinosaur tracksite in the Connecticut Valley. Later that year, the fossil footprints discovered while paving Greenfield were brought to the attention of local naturalist and physician James Deane, whose curiosity was piqued. Deane wrote a letter to Amherst College geology professor Edward B. Hitchcock. Hitchcock spent the rest of the summer traveling through the Connecticut Valley examining the fossil footprints. The next year Hitchcock wrote a scientific paper on the fossil footprints of the Connecticut Valley. He thought the tracks were made by giant birds. Later, in 1843, James Deane began publishing on the Connecticut Valley track fossils with a paper in the American Journal of Science. In 1847 the ichnospecies Otozoum moodi was named after Pliny Moody.
Chaoyang, Liaoning
Liaoning, and in particular Chaoyang, has become the focus of great interest in the world of palaeontology. During the 1990s, many new, unique and fascinating fossils were discovered in this region. Some of the finds have completely revolutionised our ideas of dinosaurs and shed new light on the origin of birds. Chaoyang's fossils are in the Jiufotang Formation. These fossils include: Liaoxipterus, a genus of ctenochasmatid pterodactyloid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous; Microraptor, a feathered dinosaur; and several early birds such as Longipteryx Chaoyangensis, Sapeornis Yanornis and Shenzhouraptor, an early bird. Insects have also been found such as Dictyoptera, a fossilised cockroach and Hymenoptera, a fossil bee, which also date to the Lower Cretaceous period. A local trade in rare fossils has developed in the wake of the finds, with an estimated sixty vendors gathering in one area, called Ancient Street.
Ernanodon
It was a relatively small animal about 50 cm in length, not including the tail. When it was first discovered and examined, it was thought to be a primitive anteater. "E. antelios" and "Eurotamandua" of Eocene Germany helped to support a now-abandoned hypothesis that there was movement between the faunas of South America (the homeland of anteaters and other Xenarthrans), and the faunas of Europe and Asia, by way of North America. This was further supported by the alleged European Phorusrhacid "Strigogyps", also of Eocene Germany.
Istiodactylus
In 1887, the British palaeontologist Harry G. Seeley described a fossil synsacrum (fused vertebrae attached to the pelvis) from the Isle of Wight, an island off the coast of southern England. Though he compared it with those of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, he concluded that it belonged to a bird (though more dinosaur-like than any known bird), which he named "Ornithodesmus cluniculus". The British geologist John W. Hulke suggested later that year that "Ornithodesmus" was a pterosaur, finding it similar to fossils that he had seen before, but Seeley disagreed. In his 1901 "Dragons of the Air", the first popular book about pterosaurs, Seeley reported another specimen (NHMUK R176 at the Natural History Museum in London, formerly BMNH), found by the reverend William Fox in Atherfield on the Isle of Wight, and acquired by the British Museum in 1882. Specimen NHMUK R176 had been assigned to the species "Ornithocheirus nobilis" by the English naturalist Richard Lydekker in 1888, but Seeley considered it another species of the genus "Ornithodesmus", which he now considered pterosaurian. Seeley named the new species "O. latidens"; "latus" is Latin for "wide" and "dens" means "tooth", a name originally used by Fox and his friends. Seeley presumably assigned the new species to the existing genus due to similarities between their sacra, but with little explanation. 
Specimen NHMUK R176 is a poorly preserved skeleton consisting of the back of the skull, a neck vertebra, the sternum, the sacrum, the right humerus, the notarium, the left humerus, part of the radius and ulna, carpals, metacarpals, and wing phalanx bones. Though Seeley did not designate a holotype specimen for "O. latidens", he described and illustrated parts of NHMUK R176, which makes the 1901 naming valid according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, and the specimen is considered the holotype today. Later researchers have been mystified by the fact that Seeley described the jaws and teeth of "O. latidens" and named it after the latter, when the only specimen available in 1901, NHMUK R176, does not appear to have had these elements. Only the back of the skull was listed as present by Lydekker in 1888, but it was rumoured that a set of jaws had been lost from Fox's collection, so it is possible that Seeley had examined them prior to this. The missing jaws may be specimen CAMMZ T706, which was recognised in 1982 by the English palaeontologist Jenny A. Clack, but had no documented history prior to the mid-1960s. 
In 1913, the British amateur palaeontologist Reginald W. Hooley described two more specimens of "O. latidens", collected from the sea after a rock fall near Atherfield Point on the Isle of Wight in 1904. The first of these, NHMUK R3877, was collected as three blocks and consists of a skull, neck and trunk vertebrae, a shoulder blade, an ischium, and parts of the forelimbs. The second specimen, NHMUK R3878, was collected in one block, and includes parts of the pectoral girdle and forelimbs. These specimens represent the most complete remains of Cretaceous pterosaurs found in England, and NHMUK R3877 was one of the only known three-dimensionally preserved pterosaur skeletons for much of the 20th century (pterosaur bones are often flattened compression fossils). Hooley discussed "O. latidens" in detail, and placed the genus "Ornithodesmus" in its own family, Ornithodesmidae. His article ended with a discussion wherein it was noted that the palaeontologist Charles William Andrews had expressed doubts as to whether "O. latidens" belonged in the genus "Ornithodesmus", as the vertebrae of the specimen that genus was based on differed markedly from those of Hooley's specimen. The American palaeontologist Samuel W. Williston subsequently reviewed Hooley's article, disagreeing with some of his conclusions about the anatomy and classification of the animal. After Hooley's monograph, little was written about the animal for the rest of the 20th century, and no similar pterosaurs were found for decades.
In 1993, the British palaeontologists Stafford C. Howse and Andrew C. Milner concluded that the holotype sacrum and only specimen of "O. cluniculus" did not belong to a pterosaur, but to a maniraptoran dinosaur (this conclusion had also been reached independently by the British palaeontologist Christopher Bennett). They pointed out that no detailed attempts had been made to compare the sacrum of "O. cluniculus" with those of pterosaurs, and that "O. latidens" had in effect been treated as the type species of the genus "Ornithodesmus", with one writer even treating the original species as a synonym of the newer. As a definite species of pterosaurs, ""O."" "latidens" therefore required a new genus name. In 2001, Howse, Milner, and David Martill moved ""O."" "latidens" to the new genus "Istiodactylus"; the name is derived from Greek "istion", "sail" and "daktylos", "finger", referring to the wings of large pterosaurs. They also named the new family Istiodactylidae, with "Istiodactylus" as the sole member.
Pteranodon
In 1892, Samuel Williston examined the question of "Pteranodon" classification. He noticed that, in 1871, Seeley had mention the existence of a partial set of toothless pterosaur jaws from the Cambridge Greensand of England, which he named "Ornithostoma". Because the primary characteristic Marsh had used to separate "Pteranodon" from other pterosaurs was its lack of teeth, Williston concluded that "Ornithostoma" must be considered the senior synonym of "Pteranodon". However, in 1901, Pleininger pointed out that "Ornithostoma" had never been scientifically described or even assigned a species name until Williston's work, and therefore had been a "nomen nudum" and could not beat out "Pteranodon" for naming priority. Williston accepted this conclusion and went back to calling the genus "Pteranodon". However, both Williston and Pleininger were incorrect, because unnoticed by both of them was the fact that, in 1891, Seeley himself had finally described and properly named "Ornithostoma", assigning it to the species "O. sedgwicki". In the 2010s, more research on the identity of "Ornithostoma" showed that it was probably not "Pteranodon" or even a close relative, but may in fact have been an azhdarchoid, a different type of toothless pterosaur.
Paleontology in Pennsylvania
One of the first major fossil finds of the 20th century in Pennsylvania was the 1902 discovery of dinosaur tracks at a fisher's Quarry near Graterford in Montgomery County. Another prominent early 1900s discovery was a lower jaw from the amphibian "Calamops" was discovered in the Late Triassic Stockton Formation at Holicong. This is the oldest vertebrate fossil from either the Hartford or Newark Basins. In 1923 the Reading Railroad tunnel at Gwynned was converted into an open cut, exposing many Late Triassic fossils. Later, in 1933, two "Anchisauripus" tracks were discovered near Yocumtown in York County. Dinosaur tracks dating back to the Late Triassic were discovered near the Gettysburg battle sites in 1933.
Propanoplosaurus
The holotype, USNM 540686, was found in the Patuxent Formation, dating from the late Aptian. It consists of the impressions of the back of the head together with a natural cast of the ribcage, some vertebrae, the right forelimb, the right femur and a right foot. The animal is shown lying on its back. The authors rejected the possibility the specimen represented a pseudofossil or an embryo. The specimen is the first nodosaurid skeleton from the eastern seaboard from which previously only nodosaurid teeth named as "Priconodon" were known, and the first neonate dinosaur from that region.
Geosternbergia
The first "G. sternbergi" fossil was collected by George F. Sternberg in 1952 and described by John Christian Harksen in 1966, from the lower portion of the Niobrara Formation. It was older than "Pteranodon longiceps" and is considered by Bennett to be the direct ancestor of that species.
Timeline of troodontid research
This timeline of troodontid research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the troodontids, a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs including animals like "Troodon". Troodontid remains were among the first dinosaur fossils to be reported from North America after paleontologists began performing research on the continent, specifically the genus "Troodon" itself. Since the type specimen of this genus was only a tooth and "Troodon" teeth are unusually similar to those of the unrelated thick-headed pachycephalosaurs, "Troodon" and its relatives would be embroiled in taxonomic confusion for over a century. "Troodon" was finally recognized as distinct from the pachycephalosaurs by Phil Currie in 1987. By that time many other species now recognized as troodontid had been discovered but had been classified in the family Saurornithoididae. Since these families were the same but the Troodontidae named first, it carries scientific legitimacy.
Timeline of pterosaur research
This timeline of pterosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, and taxonomic revisions of pterosaurs, the famed flying reptiles of the Mesozoic era. Although pterosaurs went extinct millions of years before humans evolved, humans have coexisted with pterosaur fossils for millennia. Before the development of paleontology as a formal science, these remains would have been interpreted through a mythological lens. Myths about thunderbirds told by the Native Americans of the modern western United States may have been influenced by observations of "Pteranodon" fossils. These thunderbirds were said to have warred with water monsters, which agrees well with the co-occurrence of "Pteranodon" and the ancient marine reptiles of the seaway over which it flew.
Stenonychosaurus
The first specimens currently assigned to "Troodon" that were not teeth were both found by Sternberg in 1928, in the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta. The first was named "Stenonychosaurus inequalis" by Sternberg in 1932, based on a foot, fragments of a hand, and some tail vertebrae. A remarkable feature of these remains was the enlarged claw on the second toe, which is now recognized as characteristic of early paravians. Sternberg initially classified "Stenonychosaurus" as a member of the family Coeluridae. The second, a partial lower jaw bone, was described by Gilmore (1932) as a new species of lizard which he named "Polyodontosaurus grandis". Later, in 1951, Sternberg recognized "P. grandis" as a possible synonym of "Troodon", and speculated that since "Stenonychosaurus" had a "very peculiar pes" and "Troodon" "equally unusual teeth", they may be closely related. Unfortunately, no comparable specimens were available at that time to test the idea.
Pterodactylus
Pterodactylus ( , from the , ', meaning "winged finger") is an extinct genus of pterosaurs, whose members are popularly known as pterodactyls ( ). It is currently thought to contain only a single species, Pterodactylus antiquus, the first pterosaur species to be named and identified as a flying reptile.
Temnodontosaurus
"T. trigonodon" was named by von Theodori in 1843. The type specimen for "T. trigonodon" is an almost complete skeleton from the upper Liassic of Banz, Germany of the Lower Toarcian. The specimen is roughly 9.8 m long with a 1.8 m long skull. Other specimens have been found in Germany and also France from the Lower Toarcian of Saint Colombe, Yonne, France. A "T. trigonodon" specimen from the Upper Toarcian, Aalen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany is at The Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart in Germany (15950).
Aublysodon
The first skeletal material referred to an original "Aublysodon" species was a partial skull unearthed in Jordan, Montana in 1966 and described by Ralph Molnar in 1977/1978. The skull, specimen LACM 28741 at forty-five centimetres the length of an average human arm, bore pointed teeth attached to a long narrow snout. First thought to be a juvenile "Tyrannosaurus", then interpreted as a large dromaeosaurid, this "Jordan theropod" was given the name "Aublysodon molnaris" by Gregory S. Paul in 1988; in 1990 the name was by Paul emended to "Aublysodon molnari", applying the correct genitive. It was made a separate genus "Stygivenator" by George Olshevsky in 1995, but was later, in 2004, reinterpreted to be a juvenile "Tyrannosaurus rex" by Thomas Carr and Tom Williamson. Another partial skeleton from New Mexico, specimen OMNH 10131, was in 1990 considered to represent "Aublysodon", but later research by Thomas Carr and Tom Williamson first referred it to "Daspletosaurus" and ultimately to "Bistahieversor". In 1988 Paul also created another species when renaming "Shanshanosaurus huoyanshanensis" Dong 1977 into "Aublysodon huoyanshanensis". It probably represents a "Tarbosaurus" specimen.
Hyracotherium
The first fossil identified as being of this genus, holotype specimen BMNH M16336, was found in the cliffs of Studd Hill near Herne Bay, Kent, and described by the paleontologist Richard Owen in a paper read to the Geological Society of London on 18 December 1839 as a "small mutilated cranium about the size of that of a hare". He identified it as belonging to an extinct order of Pachydermata, with teeth resembling those of the "Chseropotamus" and the general form of the skull "partaking of a character intermediate between that of the hog and the hyrax, though the large size of the eye must have given to the physiognomy of the living animal a resemblance to that of the Rodentia." Referring to this resemblance to the hyrax, Owen proposed the genus name "Hyracotherium" for this new genus. In his formal description published by the Geological Society in 1841, Owen wrote "Without intending to imply that the present small extinct Pachyderm was more closely allied to the Hyrax than as being a member of the same order, and similar in size, I propose to call the new genus which it unquestionably indicates, "Hyracotherium", with the specific name "leporinum.""
Pterodactylus
It was the German/French scientist Johann Hermann who first stated that "Pterodactylus" used its long fourth finger to support a wing membrane. In March 1800, Hermann alerted the French scientist George Cuvier to the existence of Collini's fossil, believing that it had been captured by the occupying armies of Napoleon and sent to the French collections in Paris (and perhaps to Cuvier himself) as war booty; at the time special French political commissars systematically seized art treasures and objects of scientific interest. Hermann sent Cuvier a letter containing his own interpretation of the specimen (though he had not examined it personally), which he believed to be a mammal, including the first known life restoration of a pterosaur. Hermann restored the animal with wing membranes extending from the long fourth finger to the ankle and a covering of fur (neither wing membranes nor fur had been preserved in the specimen). Hermann also added a membrane between the neck and wrist, as is the condition in bats. Cuvier agreed with this interpretation, and at Hermann's suggestion, Cuvier became the first to publish these ideas in December 1800 in a very short description. Cuvier remarked, "[It is not possible to doubt that the long finger served to support a membrane that, by lengthening the anterior extremity of this animal, formed a good wing.]" However, contrary to Hermann, Cuvier was convinced the animal was a reptile.
Pisanosaurus
"Pisanosaurus" is known from a single fragmented skeleton discovered in 1962 by Galileo Juan Scaglia at the Agua de Las Catas locality in the Ischigualasto Formation, in La Rioja, Argentina. It is based on a specimen given the designation PVL 2577, which consists of a partial skull with a fragmentary right maxilla with teeth, and incomplete right mandibular ramus (lower jaw), six incomplete cervical vertebrae, seven incomplete dorsal vertebrae, molds of five sacral vertebrae, a rib and several rib fragments, a fragmentary right scapula, a coracoid, molds of a fragmentary ilium, ischium and pubic bone, an impression of three metacarpals, the complete femora, the right tibia, the right fibula, with an articulated astragalus and calcaneum, a tarsal element with a metatarsal, metatarsals III and IV, three phalanges from the third toe and five phalanges, among them the ungual, from the fourth toe, and an indeterminate long bone fragment.
Pteranodon
Two species of "Pteranodon" are traditionally recognized as valid: "Pteranodon longiceps", the type species, and "Pteranodon sternbergi". The species differ only in the shape of the crest in adult males (described above), and possibly in the angle of certain skull bones. Because well-preserved "Pteranodon" skull fossils are extremely rare, researchers use stratigraphy (i.e. which rock layer of the geologic formation a fossil is found in) to determine species identity in most cases.
Massospondylus
The first fossils of "Massospondylus" were described by paleontologist Sir Richard Owen in 1854. Originally, Owen did not recognize these finds as those of a dinosaur; instead he attributed them to "large, extinct, carnivorous reptiles" that were related to today's lizards, chameleons and iguanas. This material, a collection of 56 bones, was found in 1853 by the government surveyor Joseph Millard Orpen in the Upper Elliot Formation at Harrismith, South Africa and was donated to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Among the remains were vertebrae from the neck, back, and tail; a shoulder blade; a humerus; a partial pelvis; a femur; a tibia; and bones of the hands and feet. All these bones were found disarticulated, making it difficult to determine if all material belongs to a single species or not. However, Owen was able to distinguish three different types of caudal vertebrae, which he attributed to three different genera: "Pachyspondylus", "Leptospondylus" and "Massospondylus". "Massospondylus" was separated from the other two genera on the basis of its much longer caudal vertebrae, which also led to the scientific name that has been derived from the Greek terms "masson"/μάσσων 'longer' and "sphondylos"/σφόνδυλος 'vertebra'. However, later it was shown that the putative caudal vertebrae of "Massospondylus" were actually cervical vertebrae and that all the material probably belongs only to a single species. On May 10, 1941, the Hunterian Museum was demolished by a German bomb, destroying all the fossils; only casts remain.
Nothronychus
The first fossil evidence later attributed to "Nothronychus" was discovered by a team of paleontologists working in the Zuni Basin of New Mexico at the Haystack Butte site. A therizinosaur ischium (a hip bone) had originally been mistaken for a squamosal, a part of the skull crest of the newly discovered ceratopsian "Zuniceratops". However, closer examination revealed the true identity of the bone, and soon more parts of the skeleton were found. The New Mexico team, led by paleontologists Jim Kirkland and Doug Wolfe, published their find in the "Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology" on 22 August 2001, making it the type specimen of the new species "Nothronychus mckinleyi". The "Arizona Republic" newspaper, however, was first to announce the name on 19 June 2001, in a column by R.E. Molnar. The generic name is derived from Greek νωθρός, "nothros", "heavy" or "slothful", and ὄνυξ, "onyx", "claw". The specific name honours rancher Bobby McKinley on whose land the find was made. The holotype, specimen MSM P2106, consists of two skull fragments, a braincase, some vertebrae and parts of the shoulder girdle, forelimbs, pelvis and hindlimbs.
A second, more complete therizinosaur specimen, UMNH VP 16420, was discovered from the Tropic Shale formation (dating to the early Turonian stage) of southern Utah in 2000 by Merle Graffam, a resident of Big Water, Utah. The area around Big Water had been subject to several expeditions by teams from the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA), and was known for its abundance of marine reptile fossils, especially plesiosaurs. During part of the late Cretaceous period, the region had been submerged under a shallow sea, the Western Interior Seaway, and preserves extensive marine deposits. Graffam's initial discovery (a large, isolated toe bone) came as a surprise to scientists, as it clearly belonged to a land-dwelling dinosaur, rather than a plesiosaur. However, the location of the bone at the time would have been nearly 100 kilometers from the Cretaceous shoreline. An excavation of the area by an MNA crew revealed more of the skeleton, and the scientists found that it was a therizinosaur, and the first example of that group to be found in the Americas. All previous therizinosaur fossils had come from China and Mongolia. It is the most complete therizinosaurid specimen known but lacks the skull.
Inverloch, Victoria
Australia’s first dinosaur bone, the Cape Paterson Claw, was discovered here in 1903 by William Ferguson in Cape Paterson or what is now Eagles Nest, Bunurong Marine National Park, Inverloch. Today, the Dinosaur Dreaming fossil excavation at the Flat Rocks coastal site by Anderson Inlet attracts both Australian and international visitors. More than 6000 bones and teeth of small dinosaurs, mammals, birds, turtles and fish have been excavated.
Pteranodon
Unlike earlier pterosaurs, such as "Rhamphorhynchus" and "Pterodactylus", "Pteranodon" had toothless beaks, similar to those of birds. "Pteranodon" beaks were made of solid, bony margins that projected from the base of the jaws. The beaks were long, slender, and ended in thin, sharp points. The upper jaw, which was longer than the lower jaw, was curved upward; while this normally has been attributed only to the upward-curving beak, one specimen (UALVP 24238) has a curvature corresponding with the beak widening towards the tip. While the tip of the beak is not known in this specimen, the level of curvature suggests it would have been extremely long. The unique form of the beak in this specimen led Alexander Kellner to assign it to a distinct genus, "Dawndraco", in 2010.
Paranthodon
In 1845, amateur geologists William Guybon Atherstone and Andrew Geddes Bain discovered several fossils near Dassieklip, Cape Province, in the Bushmans River Valley. This was the first dinosaur find in all of the Southern Hemisphere and Africa. In 1849 and 1853, Bain sent some of the fossils to palaeontologist Richard Owen for identification. Among them was an upper jaw Bain referred to as the "Cape "Iguanodon"", so the site was named "Iguanodonhoek". Atherstone published a short paper about the discovery in 1857, but lamented in 1871 that it had thus far received no attention in London. Only in 1876 were a series of specimens from the collection named by Owen as "Anthodon serrarius", basing the generic name on the resemblance of the teeth to a flower. The partial holotype skull BMNH 47337, the left jaw BMNH 47338, the matrix BMNH 47338 including bone fragments and impressions of the anterior skull, and the vertebrae BMNH 47337a were all assigned to "Anthodon." In 1882, Othniel Charles Marsh assigned "Anthodon" to Stegosauridae based on BMNH 47338, and in 1890, Richard Lydekker found that although "Anthodon" was a pareiasaur, its teeth were similar to those of the Stegosauridae. Lydekker in 1890 also corrected a mistake of Owen, who had incorrectly summarized all the material as coming from a single locality, whereas there was separate material from two clearly distinct localities.
Nyctosaurus
The first "Nyctosaurus" fossils were described in 1876 by Othniel Charles Marsh, based on fragmentary material, holotype YPM 1178, from the Smoky Hill River site in Kansas. Marsh referred the specimen to a species of his new genus "Pteranodon", as "Pteranodon gracilis". Later that year, Marsh reclassified the species in its own genus, which he named "Nyctosaurus", meaning "night lizard" or "bat lizard", in reference to the wing structure somewhat paralleling those of bats. In 1881, Marsh incorrectly assumed the name was preoccupied and changed it into "Nyctodactylus", which thus is now a junior synonym. In 1902, Samuel Wendell Williston described the most complete skeleton then known (P 25026) discovered in 1901 by H. T. Martin. In 1903, Williston named a second species, "N. leptodactylus", but this is today considered identical to "N. gracilis".
Pteranodontidae
Pteranodontids are primarily known from the Coniacian to Campanian stages of the Cretaceous in North America and Japan. However, potential Maastrichtian remains have been identified from several other locations, being actually rather common in the Maastrichtian of the Tethys Sea. Beginning in 2016, Nicholas Longrich, David Martill, and Brian Andres presented evidence of several nyctosaurid and pteranodontid species from the latest Maastrichtian age of north Africa, suggesting that both lineages went through an evolutionary radiation in the Tethys region shortly before the K–Pg extinction event. Additionally, later phylogenetic studies imply that they represent a ghost lineage dating much earlier in the Cretaceous.
Protosphyraena
As is the case with many fossil vertebrates discovered by 19th century paleontologists, the taxonomy of "Protosphyraena" has had a confusing history. Fossil pectoral spines belonging to this taxon were first recognized in 1822, from chalk deposits in England, by Gideon Mantell, the physician and geologist who also discovered the dinosaur "Iguanodon". In 1857, the fish was named "Protosphyraena ferox" by the renowned American naturalist and paleontologist, Joseph Leidy, based on Mantell's English finds. Earlier, Leidy had published an illustration of a "Protosphyraena" tooth from the Cretaceous-aged Navesink Formation of New Jersey (Maastrichtian), but mistakenly identified is as having come from a dinosaur. During the 1870s, B. F. Mudge, a fossil collector supplying material to rival paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, discovered a number of specimens of "Protosphyraena" in Niobrara exposures in Rooks and Ellis counties in Kansas and sent them back east. Between 1873 and 1877, Cope renamed three species based on Mudge's specimens, all of which would eventually be recognized as belonging to the genus "Protosphyraena": "Erisichte nitida", ""Portheus" gladius", and ""Pelecopterus" pernicciosus". Between 1895 and 1903, paleontologists in America and England, including Arthur Smith Woodward (1895), Loomis (1900), O. P. Hay (1903), in a series of important works, reviewed the genus, adding much to our understanding of this fish.
Pteranodon
It is likely that, as in other polygynous animals (in which males compete for association with harems of females), "Pteranodon" lived primarily on offshore rookeries, where they could nest away from land-based predators and feed far from shore; most "Pteranodon" fossils are found in locations which at the time, were hundreds of kilometres from the coastline.
Pteranodon
Adult male "Pteranodon" were among the largest pterosaurs, and were the largest flying animals known until the late 20th century, when the giant azhdarchid pterosaurs were discovered. The wingspan of an average adult male "Pteranodon" was . Adult females were much smaller, averaging in wingspan. The largest specimen of "Pteranodon longiceps" from the Niobrara Formation measured from wingtip to wingtip. An even larger specimen is known from the Pierre Shale Formation, with a wingspan of , though this specimen may belong to the distinct genus and species "Geosternbergia maysei". While most specimens are found crushed, enough fossils exist to put together a detailed description of the animal.
Euoplocephalus
The first fossil of "Euoplocephalus" was found in 1897 in Alberta. In 1902, it was named "Stereocephalus", but that name had already been given to an insect, so it was changed in 1910. Later, many more ankylosaurid remains were found from the Campanian of North America and often made separate genera. In 1971, Walter Coombs concluded that they all belonged to "Euoplocephalus" which then would be one of the best-known dinosaurs. Recently however, experts have come to the opposite conclusion, limiting the authentic finds of "Euoplocephalus" to about a dozen specimens. These include a number of almost complete skeletons, so much is nevertheless known about the build of the animal.
Aerodactylus
The fossil remains of this species have been found only in the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria, Germany, dated to the late Jurassic Period (early Tithonian), about 150.8–148.5 million years ago. Like all pterosaurs, the wings of "Aerodactylus" were formed by a skin and muscle membrane stretching from its elongated fourth finger to its hind limbs. It was supported internally by collagen fibres and externally by keratinous ridges. Several well preserved fossils have shown that "Aerodactylus" was covered in a short, dense coat of bristly pycnofibres, and that it had a rounded triangular crest on its head, as well as a backward-pointing lappet. It is named after the Pokémon Aerodactyl. The validity of "Aerodactylus" has been disputed, with some pterosaur experts suggesting that none of the specimens referred to this genus are distinguishable from "Pterodactylus".
Pterodromoides
Pterodromoides minoricensis is an extinct fulmarine petrel dating from the Late Miocene. Its fossil remains were found at the Punta Nati palaeontological site on the island of Menorca in the Balearic archipelago of the western Mediterranean. It was described in 2001, with the authors justifying the creation of a new genus by the large orbitonasal opening and characters of the postcranial skeleton, despite the similarity of the cranial osteology to that of "Pagodroma". The generic name derives from its resemblance to "Pterodroma" in shape and proportions. The specific epithet refers to the type locality.
Aurorazhdarcho
A specimen originally classified as "Pterodactylus micronyx" (now "Aurorazhdarcho micronyx") was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, documented pterosaur fossil ever found. The holotype specimen of "P. micronyx", also known as the "Pester Exemplar", was originally part of the private fossil collection held by Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria. Evidence suggest that the Pester Exemplar was unearthed at some point between 1757, when Maria Anna was recovering from serious cases of pneumonia and tuberculosis, after which she began collecting fossils, and 1779, when the specimen was first studied by scientists. This overlaps with the possible time of discovery of the holotype specimen of "Pterodactylus antiquus", often considered the first pterosaur found, which was unearthed sometime between 1767 and 1784.
Spinosauridae
The first fossils referred to a spinosaurid were discovered in 1912 at the Bahariya Formation in Egypt. Consisting of dorsal vertebrae, skull fragments, and teeth, these remains became the holotype specimen of the new genus and species "Spinosaurus aegyptiacus" in 1915, when they were described by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer. The dinosaur's name meant "egyptian spine lizard", in reference to the unusually long neural spines not seen previously in any other theropod. In April 1944, the holotype of "S. aegyptiacus" was destroyed during an allied bombing raid in World War II. In 1934, Stromer referred a partial skeleton also from the Bahariya Formation to a new species of "Spinosaurus", this specimen has since been alternatively assigned to another African spinosaurid, "Sigilmassasaurus."
Temnodontosaurus
Discovery
The first ichthyosaur skull ever discovered was that of "Temnodontosaurus platyodon". The specimen (BMNH 2149) was found in the Lias of Lyme Regis by Joseph Anning in 1811. The rest of the skeleton was recovered in 1812 by his sister, Mary Anning, but has been lost since. The ichthyosaur was subsequently described by the anatomist Sir Everard Home, in what was the first scientific description of an ichthyosaur. "T. platyodon" is the type species of "Temnodontosaurus" and the most common species. The type skull is currently located at the Natural History Museum in London. The specimen was originally named "Ichthyosaurus platyodon" but then renamed "Temnodontosaurus". The genus "Temnodontosaurus" was named by Richard Lydekker in 1889.
"Temnodontosaurus" is the only genus in the family Temnodontosauridae. The family Temnodontosauridae was described by C. McGowan and is from the Lower Liassic. Temnodontosauridae is part of the monophyletic group Neoichthyosauria, a clade named by Martin Sander in 2000 that includes the families Temnodontosauridae, Leptonectidae and Suevoleviathanidae. "Temnodontosaurus" is one of the most basal post-Triassic ichthyosaurs.
Iguanodon
The discovery of "Iguanodon" has long been accompanied by a popular legend. The story goes that Gideon Mantell's wife, Mary Ann, discovered the first teeth of an "Iguanodon" in the strata of Tilgate Forest in Whitemans Green, Cuckfield, Sussex, England, in 1822 while her husband was visiting a patient. However, there is no evidence that Mantell took his wife with him while seeing patients. Furthermore, he admitted in 1851 that he himself had found the teeth. Not everyone agrees that the story is false, though. It is known from his notebooks that Mantell first acquired large fossil bones from the quarry at Whitemans Green in 1820. Because also theropod teeth were found, thus belonging to carnivores, he at first interpreted these bones, which he tried to combine into a partial skeleton, as those of a giant crocodile. In 1821 Mantell mentioned the find of herbivorous teeth and began to consider the possibility that a large herbivorous reptile was present in the strata. However, in his 1822 publication "Fossils of the South Downs" he as yet did not dare to suggest a connection between the teeth and his very incomplete skeleton, presuming that his finds presented two large forms, one carnivorous ("an animal of the Lizard Tribe of enormous magnitude"), the other herbivorous.
Pteranodon
Due to the subtle variations between specimens of pteranodontid from the Niobrara Formation, most researchers have assigned all of them to the single genus "Pteranodon", in at least two species ("P. longiceps" and "P. sternbergi") distinguished mainly by the shape of the crest. However, the classification of these two forms has varied from researcher to researcher. In 1972, Halsey Wilkinson Miller published a paper arguing that the various forms of "Pteranodon" were different enough to be placed in distinct subgenera. He named these "Pteranodon (Occidentalia) occidentalis" (for the now-disused species "P. occidentalis") and "Pteranodon (Sternbergia) sternbergi". However, the name "Sternbergia" was preoccupied, and in 1978 Miller re-named the species "Pteranodon (Geosternbergia) sternbergi", and named a third subgenus/species combination for "P. longiceps", as "Pteranodon (Longicepia) longiceps". Most prominent pterosaur researchers of the late 20th century however, including S. Christopher Bennett and Peter Wellnhofer, did not adopt these subgeneric names, and continued to place all pteranodont species into the single genus "Pteranodon".
Quetzalcoatlus
The first "Quetzalcoatlus" fossils were discovered in Texas, United States, from the Maastrichtian Javelina Formation at Big Bend National Park (dated to around 68 million years ago) in 1971 by Douglas A. Lawson, a geology graduate student from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. The specimen consisted of a partial wing (in pterosaurs composed of the forearms and elongated fourth finger), from an individual later estimated at over in wingspan.
Uraraneida
The first fossil now placed in the order was found in Gilboa, New York. In 1987, it was initially tentatively placed in the extinct order Trigonotarbida and named "Gelasinotarbus"? "fimbriunguis". Later, partly on the basis of a supposed spinneret, it was identified as a spider and named "Attercopus fimbriunguis". Further specimens of this species were found, and when examined in detail, along with those assigned to the genus "Permarachne", features inconsistent with their placement as spiders were revealed. Silk producing spigots are present, but are borne along the rear edges of ventral plates, not on appendage-like spinnerets, as in spiders. The specimens also have a long, jointed "tail" or flagellum at the end of the abdomen, after the anus, a feature lacking in spiders but present in some other arachnids, such as uropygids.
Apatomerus
Apatomerus (meaning "deceptive femur"), is a genus of extinct reptile known from a single fossil (KUVP 1199) from the Albian-age (Lower Cretaceous) Kiowa Shale of Kansas, USA. This bone, collected in 1893, was first identified as the thighbone of a crocodilian, but was described in 1903 by Samuel Wendell Williston as belonging to a pterosaur. This identification held through the 1970s, but has been abandoned. Recent summaries of pterosaur genera, such as Wellnhofer, 1991 and Glut, 2004 did not include it, and Mike Everhart, an authority on the rocks of the Western Interior Seaway (including the Kiowa Shale) identifies the bone as more likely the upper part of a plesiosaurian propodial (a limb bone).
Timeline of tyrannosaur research
Tyrannosaur remains were among the first dinosaur fossils collected in the United States. The first of these was named "Deinodon horridus" by Joseph Leidy. However, as this species was based only on teeth the name would fall into disuse. Soon after, Edward Drinker Cope described "Laelaps aquilunguis" from a partial skeleton in New Jersey. Its discovery heralded the realization that carnivorous dinosaurs were bipeds, unlike the lizardlike megalosaurs sculpted for the Crystal Palace. "Laelaps" was also among the first dinosaurs to be portrayed artistically as a vigorous, active animal, presaging the Dinosaur Renaissance by decades. Later in the century, Cope's hated rival Othniel Charles Marsh would discover that the name "Laelaps" had already been given to a parasitic mite, and would rename the dinosaur "Dryptosaurus".
Pteranodon
"Pteranodon sternbergi" is the only known species of "Pteranodon" with an upright crest. The lower jaw of "P. sternbergi" was long. It was collected by George F. Sternberg in 1952 and described by John Christian Harksen in 1966, from the lower portion of the Niobrara Formation. It was older than "P. longiceps" and is considered by Bennett to be the direct ancestor of the later species.
Rhenanida
The fossil record of Rhenanida is very sparse, with most fossils being isolated tubercles and skull fragments that are identified as being similar to "Gemuendina stuertzi", the most well-known rhenanid, known from several specimens from the Hunsruck slates. Given the rhenanids' worldwide distribution, this paupacity probably did not reflect a scarcity of living individuals (when the order was alive), but reflects the fact that rhenanid armor disintegrated into isolated fragments, and scattered soon after the owner's demise. Most fossils of rhenanids are from the Early Devonian, primarily in the United States and Germany. The recently discovered "Nefudina qalibahensis" is known from Northeastern Saudi Arabia. "Asterosteus stenocephalus" is known from Mid Devonian Ohio. Another species of rhenanid was "Bolivosteus chacomensis", of the Lower to Middle Devonian Malvinokaffric Fauna of Western Gondwana, in what is now Bolivia, South America. The youngest rhenanid, "Jagorina pandora" is known from Upper Devonian Germany.
Alphadon
Alphadon (meaning "first tooth") was a genus of small, primitive mammal that was a member of the metatherians, a group of mammals that includes modern-day marsupials. Its fossils were first discovered and named by George Gaylord Simpson in 1929.
Pterosaur
The first pterosaur fossil was described by the Italian naturalist Cosimo Alessandro Collini in 1784. Collini misinterpreted his specimen as a seagoing creature that used its long front limbs as paddles. A few scientists continued to support the aquatic interpretation even until 1830, when the German zoologist Johann Georg Wagler suggested that "Pterodactylus" used its wings as flippers. Georges Cuvier first suggested that pterosaurs were flying creatures in 1801, and coined the name ""Ptero-dactyle"" in 1809 for the specimen recovered in Germany. However, due to the standardization of scientific names, the official name for this genus became "Pterodactylus", though the name "pterodactyl" continued to be popularly and incorrectly applied to all members of Pterosauria. Paleontologists now avoid using "pterodactyl" and prefer the term "pterosaur". They relegate the term "pterodactyl" specifically for members of the genus "Pterodactylus" or more broadly for members of the suborder Pterodactyloidea.
Cetiosauriscus
The sauropod fossil today known as "Cetiosauriscus stewarti" was discovered in May 1898 by clay workers in the area around Fletton to the south of Peterborough and east of the Great Northern Railway. Pits in this region expose the fossil-rich sedimentary rocks of the marine Oxford Clay, which is of middle Callovian age and today regarded as one of the classic geological formations of British palaeontology. The sauropod fossil possibly stems from NPBCL pit No. 1, which was the northernmost pit operated by the New Peterborough Brick Company Limited, and which produced the most vertebrate fossils. The discovery was brought to the attention of Leeds, who, after excavation, took the sauropod specimen to Eyebury, the Leeds' family home. In mid-August, after some cleaning and repairing of the specimen, geologist Henry Woodward visited Eyebury and produced a life-sized drawing of the remains for presentation at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting. Following this presentation, on 17 August 1898, Henry Woodward returned with American palaeontologist Othniel Charles Marsh, who considered the sauropod to be closely related to the North American taxon "Diplodocus". Alfred Leeds offered the sauropod to the British Museum of Natural History (BMNH, now abbreviated as NHMUK) for £250, which would equate to about £30,529 in 2017. The NHMUK had earlier in 1890 and 1892 bought the First and Second Collections of Alfred Leeds, respectively. Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the NHMUK, had "great pleasure" to recommend to the Trustees of the NHMUK the fossil be purchased. The purchase was sanctioned on 25 February 1899, along with the purchase of assorted other remains for just over £357 (~£43,596 now), where the Leeds sauropod gained the accession number BMNH R3078 (now NHMUK R3078).
Pteranodon
Below the surface, the sea was populated primarily by invertebrates such as ammonites and squid. Vertebrate life, apart from basal fish, included sea turtles, such as "Toxochelys", the plesiosaur "Styxosaurus", and the flightless diving bird "Parahesperornis". Mosasaurs were the most common marine reptiles, with genera including "Clidastes" and "Tylosaurus". At least some of these marine reptiles are known to have fed on "Pteranodon". Barnum Brown, in 1904, reported plesiosaur stomach contents containing "pterodactyl" bones, most likely from "Pteranodon".
Bunurong Marine and Coastal Park
Australia’s first dinosaur bone, the Cape Paterson Claw, was discovered in 1903 by William Ferguson at what is now Bunurong Marine Park at Eagles Nest beach in Inverloch. Since then more than bones and teeth of small dinosaurs, mammals, birds, turtles and fish have been excavated. There is a dinosaur exhibition at the Inverloch Shell Museum.
Monotreme
The fossil record of monotremes is relatively sparse. The first Mesozoic monotreme to be discovered was "Steropodon galmani" from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. Although biochemical and anatomical evidence suggests that the monotremes diverged from the mammalian lineage before the marsupials and placental mammals arose, only a handful of monotreme fossils are known from before the Miocene epoch. The known Mesozoic monotremes are "Steropodon" and "Teinolophos", all from Australian deposits in the Cretaceous, so monotremes had already diversified by that time. A platypus tooth has been found in the Palaeocene of Argentina, so one hypothesis is that monotremes arose in Australia in the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous, and that some migrated across Antarctica to South America, both of which were still united with Australia at that time.; however, several genetic studies suggest an origin in the Triassic.
Eoraptor
The bones of this primitive dinosaur were first discovered in 1991, by University of San Juan paleontologist Ricardo Martínez, during field work conducted by the University of Chicago and the University of San Juan. The holotype specimen PVSJ 512 was discovered in muddy siltstone from the Cancha de Bochas Member of the Ischigualasto Formation in Argentina. The fossils in this formation were deposited in the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, approximately 235 to 228 million years ago. It took almost 12 months to collect the holotype, which was then shipped to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for preparation by William F. Simpson and Bob Masek. The fossil was first put on display in Chicago and was then returned to San Juan, Argentina, where it went on display at the Museum of Natural Sciences.
The genus name "Eoraptor" is derived from the Greek word "eos" (ηως) meaning "dawn", a reference to its primitive nature and the Latin word "raptor" meaning "plunderer", a reference to its presumed carnivorous nature and its grasping hand. The specific name "lunensis" is derived from the Latin words "luna" meaning "moon", and the suffix "~ensis", meaning "inhabitant". The specific name "lunensis" is a reference to its place of discovery: the "Valle de la Luna", which is Spanish for "Valley of the Moon." This valley is so named because of its arid, otherworldly appearance, evocative of a lunar landscape. The type species is "Eoraptor lunensis", which means "dawn plunderer from the Valley of the Moon". "Eoraptor" was described and named by Paul Sereno, Catherine Forster, Raymond R. Rogers, and Alfredo M. Monetta in 1993.
Deinonychus
The first remains were uncovered in 1931 in southern Montana near the town of Billings. The team leader, paleontologist Barnum Brown, was primarily concerned with excavating and preparing the remains of the ornithopod dinosaur "Tenontosaurus", but in his field report from the dig site to the American Museum of Natural History, he reported the discovery of a small carnivorous dinosaur close to a "Tenontosaurus" skeleton, "but encased in lime difficult to prepare." He informally called the animal "Daptosaurus agilis" and made preparations for describing it and having the skeleton, specimen AMNH 3015, put on display, but never finished this work. Brown brought back from the Cloverly Formation the skeleton of a smaller theropod with seemingly oversized teeth that he informally named "Megadontosaurus". John Ostrom, reviewing this material decades later, realized that the teeth came from "Deinonychus", but the skeleton came from a completely different animal. He named this skeleton "Microvenator".
Spider
The oldest known exclusively terrestrial arachnid is the trigonotarbid "Palaeotarbus jerami", from about in the Silurian period, and had a triangular cephalothorax and segmented abdomen, as well as eight legs and a pair of pedipalps. "Attercopus fimbriunguis", from in the Devonian period, bears the earliest known silk-producing spigots, and was therefore hailed as a spider at the time of its discovery. However, these spigots may have been mounted on the underside of the abdomen rather than on spinnerets, which are modified appendages and whose mobility is important in the building of webs. Hence "Attercopus" and the similar Permian arachnid "Permarachne" may not have been true spiders, and probably used silk for lining nests or producing egg-cases rather than for building webs. The largest known fossil spider as of 2011 is the araneid "Nephila jurassica", from about , recorded from Daohuogo, Inner Mongolia in China. Its body length is almost 25 mm, (i.e., almost one inch).
Paranthodon
Paranthodon ( ) is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in South Africa during the Early Cretaceous, between 139 and 131 million years ago. Discovered in 1845, it was one of the first stegosaurians found. Its only remains, a partial skull and isolated teeth, were found in the Kirkwood Formation. British paleontologist Richard Owen initially identified the fragments as those of the pareiasaur "Anthodon". After remaining untouched for years in the British Museum of Natural History, the partial skull was identified by South African paleontologist Robert Broom as belonging to a different genus; he named the specimen "Palaeoscincus africanus". Several years later, Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa, unaware of Broom's new name, similarly concluded that it represented a new taxon, and named it "Paranthodon owenii". Since Nopcsa's species name was assigned after Broom's, and Broom did not assign a new genus, both names are now synonyms of the current binomial, "Paranthodon africanus". The genus name combines the Ancient Greek "para" (near) with the genus name "Anthodon", to represent the initial referral of the remains.
Varanoidea
Either synonymous with, or a subgroup of, the group Platynota, the varanoids first appear in the fossil record in the latter part of Early Cretaceous, but possible varanoid ancestors have been traced back as far as Early Jurassic times. Among the earliest known varanoids are the monitor-like necrosaurids "Palaeosaniwa canadensis" from the Campanian (roughly 71-82 mya) of North America and "Estesia mongoliensis" and "Telmasaurus grangeri", both from the Campanian of Mongolia. Varanoids survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event and flourished worldwide during the Cenozoic Era. Current evidence strongly suggests that snakes evolved from an aquatic or burrowing varanoid ancestor, though much debate continues over precisely which lineage of varanoids.
Bunurong Marine National Park
Australia’s first dinosaur bone, the Cape Paterson Claw, was discovered in 1903 by William Ferguson at what is now Bunurong Marine Park at Eagles Nest beach in Inverloch. Since then more than bones and teeth of small dinosaurs, mammals, birds, turtles and fish have been excavated. There is a dinosaur exhibition at the Inverloch Shell Museum.
Bone marrow
The earliest fossilised evidence of bone marrow was discovered in 2014 in "Eusthenopteron", a lobe-finned fish which lived during the Devonian period approximately 370 million years ago. Scientists from Uppsala University and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility used X-ray synchrotron microtomography to study the fossilised interior of the skeleton's humerus, finding organised tubular structures akin to modern vertebrate bone marrow. "Eusthenopteron" is closely related to the early tetrapods, which ultimately evolved into the land-dwelling mammals and lizards of the present day.
Cristatusaurus
The first fossils of "Cristatusaurus" were found in 1973 by French paleontologist Philippe Taquet at Gadoufaoua, a locality within the Elrhaz Formation in Niger. The holotype specimen, cataloged under the number MNHN GDF 366, consists of two premaxillae (frontmost snout bones), a partial right (main upper jaw bone), and a fragment from the mandible. Several paratypes have been assigned: MNHN GDF 365, a snout of two articulated premaxillae; as well as MNHN GDF 357, 358, 359 and 361, four dorsal vertebrae. Two thumb claws from separate specimens were also subsequently attributed to "Cristatusaurus". In 1984, the premaxilla specimens MNHN GDF 365 and 366 were first described in detail by Taquet, where he referred them to an unnamed new theropod within the Spinosauridae family, because of shared characteristics with the holotype dentary of "Spinosaurus aegyptiacus". At the time Taquet believed these specimens belonged to the creature's lower jaw, since no theropod was known then with over five teeth in the premaxilla, while "Cristatusaurus" had seven. This was later proven incorrect in 1996 by Brazilian paleontologists Alexander Kellner and Diogenes Campos, in light of the discoveries of other spinosaurids preserving upper jaw tips with over five teeth.
Eudimorphodon
Eudimorphodon was a pterosaur that was discovered in 1973 by Mario Pandolfi in the town of Cene, Italy and described the same year by Rocco Zambelli. The nearly complete skeleton was retrieved from shale deposited during the Late Triassic (mid to late Norian stage), making "Eudimorphodon" one of the oldest pterosaurs known. It had a wingspan of about and at the end of its long bony tail may have been a diamond-shaped flap like in the later "Rhamphorhynchus". If so, the flap may have helped it steer while maneuvering in the air. "Eudimorphodon" is known from several skeletons, including juvenile specimens.
Psittacosaurus
Two new species of "Psittacosaurus" were described by Canadian Dale Russell and Zhao in 1996. The first was named "P. neimongoliensis", after the Mandarin Chinese name for Inner Mongolia. It is based on a nearly complete fossil skeleton, including most of the skull, found in the Early Cretaceous Ejinhoro Formation with seven other individuals. Russell and Zhao also named "P. ordosensis" in 1996, after the Ordos prefecture of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The type specimen is a nearly complete skeleton, including part of the skull. However, only the skull, lower jaw, and foot have been described. Three other specimens were referred to this species but remain undescribed. Like "P. neimongoliensis", this species was discovered in the Eijnhoro Formation. Sereno (2010) found the species as described to be indistinguishable from "P. sinensis", another small species, but suggested that additional study of "P. ordosensis" might reveal diagnostic features. He provisionally designated "P. ordosensis" a "nomen dubium".
Feathered dinosaur
One of the earliest discoveries of possible feather impressions by non-avian dinosaurs is an ichnofossil ("Fulicopus lyellii") of the 195-199 million year old Portland Formation in the northeastern United States. Gierlinski (1996, 1997, 1998) and Kondrat (2004) have interpreted traces between two footprints in this fossil as feather impressions from the belly of a squatting dilophosaurid. Although some reviewers have raised questions about the naming and interpretation of this fossil, if correct, this early Jurassic fossil is the oldest known evidence of feathers, almost 30 million years older than the next-oldest-known evidence.
After a century of hypotheses without conclusive evidence, well-preserved fossils of feathered dinosaurs were discovered during the 1990s, and more continue to be found. The fossils were preserved in a Lagerstätte—a sedimentary deposit exhibiting remarkable richness and completeness in its fossils—in Liaoning, China. The area had repeatedly been smothered in volcanic ash produced by eruptions in Inner Mongolia 124 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous epoch. The fine-grained ash preserved the living organisms that it buried in fine detail. The area was teeming with life, with millions of leaves, angiosperms (the oldest known), insects, fish, frogs, salamanders, mammals, turtles, and lizards discovered to date.
Dinosaur
Scholarly descriptions of what would now be recognized as dinosaur bones first appeared in the late 17th century in England. Part of a bone, now known to have been the femur of a "Megalosaurus", was recovered from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, in 1676. The fragment was sent to Robert Plot, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and first curator of the Ashmolean Museum, who published a description in his "Natural History of Oxfordshire" in 1677. He correctly identified the bone as the lower extremity of the femur of a large animal, and recognized that it was too large to belong to any known species. He therefore concluded it to be the thigh bone of a giant human similar to those mentioned in the Bible. In 1699, Edward Lhuyd, a friend of Sir Isaac Newton, was responsible for the first published scientific treatment of what would now be recognized as a dinosaur when he described and named a sauropod tooth, "Rutellum implicatum", that had been found in Caswell, near Witney, Oxfordshire.
Between 1815 and 1824, the Rev William Buckland, a professor of geology at Oxford, collected more fossilized bones of "Megalosaurus" and became the first person to describe a dinosaur in a scientific journal. The second dinosaur genus to be identified, "Iguanodon", was discovered in 1822 by Mary Ann Mantell – the wife of English geologist Gideon Mantell. Gideon Mantell recognized similarities between his fossils and the bones of modern iguanas. He published his findings in 1825.
Aris Poulianos
Since the 1970s, Poulianos has investigated early hominid remains found in a cave near Petralona, Greece, and has become known for controversial claims over their age. According to Poulianos, the Petralona Cave was accidentally discovered in 1959 by local villagers searching for a spring in the mountainside. The Petralona skull, specifically, was discovered in 1960 when it was removed from a rock in the cave. Early estimates at the time placed the age of the hominid remains to around 70,000 years old. Poulianos would ultimately study the remains, name the hominid "Archanthropus europeaus petraloniensis", and estimate its age to be around 700,000 years old.
Pteranodontidae
The Pteranodontidae are a family of large pterosaurs of the Cretaceous Period of North America. The family was named in 1876 by Othniel Charles Marsh. Pteranodontids had a distinctive, elongated crest jutting from the rear of the head (most famously seen in "Pteranodon" itself). The spectacularly-crested "Nyctosaurus" is sometimes included in this family, though usually placed in its own family, the Nyctosauridae (Nicholson & Lydekker, 1889).
Pararhabdodon
Pararhabdodon (meaning "near fluted tooth" in reference to "Rhabdodon") is a genus of tsintaosaurin hadrosaurid dinosaur, from the Maastrichtian-age Upper Cretaceous Tremp Formation of Spain. The first remains were discovered from the Sant Romà d’Abella fossil locality and assigned to the genus "Rhabdodon", and later named as the distinct species Pararhabdodon isonensis in 1993. Known material includes assorted postcranial remains, mostly vertebrae, as well as from the skull. Specimens from other sites, including remains from France, a maxilla previously considered the distinct taxon Koutalisaurus kohlerorum, an additional maxilla from another locality, the material assigned to the genera "Blasisaurus" and "Arenysaurus", and the extensive Basturs Poble bonebed have been considered at different times to belong to the species, but all of these assignments have more recently been questioned.
Pteranodon
"Pteranodon" fossils are known primarily from the Niobrara Formation of the central United States. Broadly defined, "Pteranodon" existed for more than four million years, during the late Coniacian to early Campanian stages of the Cretaceous period. The genus is present in most layers of the Niobrara Formation except for the upper two; in 2003, Kenneth Carpenter surveyed the distribution and dating of fossils in this formation, demonstrating that "Pteranodon sternbergi" existed there from 88 to 85 million years ago, while "P. longiceps" existed between 86 and 84.5 million years ago. A possible third species, which Kellner named "Geosternbergia maysei" in 2010, is known from the Sharon Springs member of the Pierre Shale Formation in Kansas, Wyoming, and South Dakota, dating to between 81.5 and 80.5 million years ago.
Pentaceratops
"Pentaceratops" fossils were first discovered in 1921. The genus was named in 1923 when its type species "Pentaceratops sternbergii" was described. "Pentaceratops" lived around 76–73 million years ago, its remains having been mostly found in the Kirtland Formation in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. About a dozen skulls and skeletons have been uncovered, so that most bones are known. One exceptionally large specimen later became its own genus, "Titanoceratops", due to its more derived morphology closer to "Triceratops" and lack of unique characters shared with "Pentaceratops" proper, although the author that originally assigned it to "Pentaceratops" has decided to ignore this in subsequent publications.
Tenontosaurus
The first "Tenontosaurus" fossil was found in Big Horn County, Montana by an American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) expedition in 1903. Subsequent digs in the same area during the 1930s unearthed 18 more specimens, and four specimens were found during the 1940s. Despite the large number of fossil specimens, the animal was not named or scientifically described during this time, though Barnum Brown of the AMNH gave it the informal name "Tenantosaurus", "sinew lizard", in reference to the extensive system of stiffening tendons in its back and tail.
Timeline of pterosaur research
Pterosaur paleontology continues to progress into the 21st century. In fact, according to David Hone the early 21st century has seen more progress in pterosaur paleontology than in "the preceding two centuries" combined. He compared this transformative period in pterosaur paleontology to the Dinosaur Renaissance of the 1970s. He also observed that roughly one-third of known pterosaurs were discovered during this brief interval. One of the most notable of these was "Darwinopterus", whose body resembled the more primitive long-tailed "rhamphorynchoids", while its skull resembled those of the more advanced short-tailed pterodactyloids. These traits establish the species as an important transitional form, documenting one of the most important phases of pterosaur evolution. Another important new species is "Faxinalipterus minima", which might well be the world's oldest pterosaur. The first confirmed pterosaur eggs were also reported from China during the early 21st century.
1784
Troodon
Troodon ( ; Troödon in older sources) is a dubious genus of relatively small, bird-like dinosaurs known definitively from the Campanian age of the Cretaceous period (about 77 mya). It includes at least one species, Troodon formosus, known from Montana. Discovered in October 1855, "T. formosus" was among the first dinosaurs found in North America, although it was thought to be a lizard until 1877. Several well-known troodontid specimens from the Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta were once believed to be members of this genus. However, recent analyses in 2017 have found the genus to be undiagnostic and referred some of these specimens to the genus "Stenonychosaurus" (long believed to be synonymous with "Troodon") and others to the newly created genus "Latenivenatrix".
List of creatures in Primeval
"Pteranodon" was a large Pterosaur, notable for its skull crest. These may have been used as mating displays, or it might have acted as a rudder, or perhaps both; also, it may have acted as a counterweight to the large beak. Despite its huge size, at "Pteranodon" is not the biggest of the pterosaurs; creatures such as "Quetzalcoatlus" could reach .
Zářecká Lhota
In 1880, first and still the only known Czech pterosaur fossil (now known as "Cretornis hlavaci") was found in a nearby quarry.
Ichthyosaur
In 1811, in Lyme Regis, along what is now called the Jurassic Coast of Dorset, the first complete ichthyosaur skull was found by Joseph Anning, the brother of Mary Anning, who in 1812 while still a young girl, secured the torso of the same specimen. Their mother, Molly Anning, sold the combined piece to squire Henry Henley for £23. Henley lent the fossil to the London Museum of Natural History of William Bullock. When this museum was closed, the British Museum bought the fossil for a price of £47.5s; it still belongs to the collection of the now independent Natural History Museum and has the inventory number BMNH R.1158. It has been identified as a specimen of "Temnodontosaurus platyodon".
Pteranodon
"Pteranodon" species are extremely well represented in the fossil record, allowing for detailed descriptions of their anatomy and analysis of their life history. Over 1,000 specimens have been identified, though less than half are complete enough to give researchers good anatomical information. Still, this is more fossil material than is known for any other pterosaur, and it includes both male and female specimens of various age groups and possibly species.
Iguanodon
The largest find of "Iguanodon" remains to that date occurred on 28 February 1878 in a coal mine at Bernissart in Belgium, at a depth of , when two mineworkers, Jules Créteur and Alphonse Blanchard, accidentally hit on a skeleton that they initially took for petrified wood. With the encouragement of Alphonse Briart, supervisor of mines at nearby Morlanwelz, Louis de Pauw on 15 May 1878 started to excavate the skeletons and in 1882 Louis Dollo reconstructed them. At least 38 "Iguanodon" individuals were uncovered, most of which were adults. In 1882, the holotype specimen of "I. bernissartensis" became one of the first ever dinosaur skeletons mounted for display. It was put together in a chapel at the Palace of Charles of Lorraine using a series of adjustable ropes attached to scaffolding so that a lifelike pose could be achieved during the mounting process. This specimen, along with several others, first opened for public viewing in an inner courtyard of the palace in July 1883. In 1891 they were moved to the Royal Museum of Natural History, where they are still on display; nine are displayed as standing mounts, and nineteen more are still in the Museum's basement. The exhibit makes an impressive display in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, in Brussels. A replica of one of these is on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and at the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge. Most of the remains were referred to a new species, "I. bernissartensis", a larger and much more robust animal than the English remains had yet revealed. One specimen, IRSNB 1551, was at first referred to the nebulous, gracile "I. mantelli", but is currently referred to "Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis". The skeletons were some of the first complete dinosaur skeletons known. Found with the dinosaur skeletons were the remains of plants, fish, and other reptiles, including the crocodyliform "Bernissartia".
Joggins
In 1852 Lyell and Dawson made a celebrated discovery of tetrapod fossils entombed within an upright tree at Coal Mine Point. Subsequent investigations by Dawson led to the discovery of one of the most important fossils in the history of science, "Hylonomus lyelli", which remains the earliest known sauropsid (reptile) in the history of life, but not oldest known amniote, the group that includes all vertebrates that can reproduce out of water. In 2002, "Hylonomus lyelli" was named the provincial fossil of Nova Scotia. Another vital early tetrapod fossil has been found here, the earliest synapsid, "Protoclepsydrops", which is actually earlier than "Hylonomus".
Tyrannosauridae
The first remains of tyrannosaurids were uncovered during expeditions led by the Geological Survey of Canada, which located numerous scattered teeth. These distinctive dinosaur teeth were given the name "Deinodon" ("terrible tooth") by Joseph Leidy in 1856. The first good specimens of a tyrannosaurid were found in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta, and consisted of nearly complete skulls with partial skeletons. These remains were first studied by Edward Drinker Cope in 1876, who considered them a species of the eastern tyrannosauroid "Dryptosaurus". In 1905, Henry Fairfield Osborn recognized that the Alberta remains differed considerably from "Dryptosaurus", and coined a new name for them: "Albertosaurus sarcophagus" ("flesh-eating Alberta lizard"). Cope described more tyrannosaur material in 1892, in the form of isolated vertebrae, and gave this animal the name "Manospondylus gigas". This discovery was mostly overlooked for over a century, and caused controversy in the early 2000s when it was discovered that this material actually belonged to, and had name priority over, "Tyrannosaurus rex".
Besanosaurus
The bones of "Besanosaurus" were first discovered in "Sasso Caldo" quarry in the spring of 1993 by the volunteers of the paleontological group of Besano, a small town in the Lombardy region of north Italy. The fossil was almost completely embedded in the rock and could be first seen only through x-rays; to detect the content of the 38 slabs of stone enclosing the skeleton, 145 radiographs were necessary. The skeleton of "Besanosaurus" came to light in the paleontological laboratory of Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano after 16500 hours of preparation. The preparators removed the rock enclosing the fossil step by step, working under a stereo microscope with chisels, needles and pins. The 38 slabs were reassembled and a silicon rubber matrix was made, from which a cast of the original specimen was obtained.
Paleontology in Maryland
In 1859, state agricultural chemist Philip T. Tyson discovered the first dinosaur fossils of the Arundel Formation in an iron pit at Bladensburg, Prince George's County. The discovery consisted of two Early Cretaceous fossil teeth. Around the same time Tyson also discovered the Arundel Formation's first known fossil cycad trunks.[84] Tyson took the dinosaur teeth to a local doctor named Christopher Johnston. Johnston cut thin sections of one tooth to examine it under a microscope. He published a paper titled "Note Upon Odontography" in the American Journal of Dental Science. Johnson named the teeth "Astrodon". In 1865 Joseph Leidy formally named the species "Astrodon johnstoni" after Christopher Johnston. This represents the first formal naming of a sauropod species in North America.
Glossotherium
Fossils of this animal have been found in South America and Mexico. It is closely related to "Paramylodon" of North America, whose specimens have often been confused with it and assigned to "Glossotherium", which in turn was initially assigned to "Mylodon". The earliest "Glossotherium" specimens are known from the Pliocene of South America and are represented by the species, "G. chapadmalense". All specimens of Pleistocene age are typically lumped into "G. robustum" and a few other questionable species. Further research is needed at the species level.
Paleontology in the United States
By the beginning of the 19th century, their fossil footprints definitely had been found in Massachusetts and later, Connecticut. These tracks were researched by the Reverend Edward Hitchcock and instrumental to the establishment of ichnology, the study of trace fossils, as a science. During the late 1850s, the world's first reasonably complete dinosaur skeleton was discovered in New Jersey. Joseph Leidy would name it Hadrosaurus. This was the first known dinosaur, the first dinosaur to be interpreted as two-legged, and the first to be mounted for exhibition in a museum. Later in the century Edward Drinker Cope described a new carnivorous dinosaur from New Jersey he called Laelaps. When he gave fellow paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh a tour of the quarry the fossils were taken from Marsh secretly convinced Cope's workers to send fossils to himself instead. Marsh also learned that the name Laelaps had already been used for a different animal and renamed Cope's dinosaur Dryptosaurus out from under him. This instigated a bitter rivalry to collect the most fossils and name the most new prehistoric species that took the two paleontologists and their crews deep into the west looking for fossils and attempting to undermine each other's fieldwork.
Pararhabdodon
Near the village Abella de la Conca, in the 1990s, palaeontologist Marc Boada discovered a new site in the Tremp Formation, bearing dinosaur fossils. From this site, later named Les Llaus (LL), a right dentary, specimen designation IPS SRA 27, was excavated. In 1997, Casanovas-Cladellas and colleagues stated this dentary was discovered from SRA, the site where the original "Pararhabdodon" remains were found. The following year, they described the specimen and referred it to "P. isonensis", and again stated it was from the same stratigraphic level. In 2006, the stratigraphy of the region was re-evaluated, and the dentary's location was corrected to the LL locality, away from and below the SRA locality.
Pterygotus
The first fossils of "Pterygotus" were found in deposits of Lochkovian-Pragian (Early Devonian) age by quarrymen in Scotland and western England, who referred to the large fossil remains as "Seraphims". Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American biologist and geologist, described the fossils in 1839 and named it "Pterygotus" in the belief that they were the fossil remains of a large fish; ""Pterygotus"" translating to "winged fish". The specimens described by Agassiz from England were referred to a species he dubbed "Pterygotus problematicus". Agassiz first recognized the true nature of the fossils as arthropod remains five years later in 1844 after having examined more complete fossils recovered in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. Although recognizing the fossils of "Pterygotus" as arthropod was closer to its modern phylogenetical position, Agassiz would consider "Pterygotus" to represent a crustacean of the Entomostraca subclass. Although Frederick M'Coy did note that "Pterygotus" resembled the Limulidae and the previously discovered eurypterid "Eurypterus" in 1849, he classified both "Eurypterus" and "Pterygotus" as crustaceans.
Palaeoxonodon
The first fossils of "Palaeoxonodon ooliticus" were found in the Kirtlington cement quarry, Oxfordshire, England. This site was rich in Mesozoic mammal remains from the Bathonian Forest Marble Formation. Later, two more species of "Palaeoxonodon" were named from the same site, "P. leesi" and "P. freemani". All of these fossils were individual teeth.
Patagosaurus
Patagosaurus (meaning "Patagonia lizard") is an extinct genus of eusauropodan dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Patagonia, Argentina. It was first found in deposits of the Cañadon Asfalto Formation, which date from around 165 to 161 million years ago. Although originally twelve specimens were assigned to the taxon, at least one of them may belong to a different genus. "Patagosaurus" probably lived alongside genera such as "Piatnitzkysaurus", "Condorraptor", "Volkheimeria" and another unnamed sauropod.
Pteranodon
Because the key distinguishing characteristic Marsh noted for "Pteranodon" was its lack of teeth, any toothless pterosaur jaw fragment, wherever it was found in the world, tended to be attributed to "Pteranodon" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This resulted in a plethora of species and a great deal of confusion. The name became a wastebasket taxon, rather like the dinosaur "Megalosaurus", to label any pterosaur remains that could not be distinguished other than by the absence of teeth. Species (often dubious ones now known to be based on sexual variation or juvenile characters) have been reclassified a number of times, and several subgenera have in the 1970s been erected by Halsey Wilkinson Miller to hold them in various combinations, further confusing the taxonomy (subgenera include "Longicepia", "Occidentalia", and "Geosternbergia"). Notable authors who have discussed the various aspects of "Pteranodon" include Bennett, Padian, Unwin, Kellner, and Wellnhofer. Two species, "P. orogensis" and "P. orientalis", are not pteranodontids and have been renamed "Bennettazhia oregonensis" and "Bogolubovia orientalis" respectively.
Pelagornis
While "P. miocaenus" was the first pseudotooth bird species to be described scientifically, its congener "Pelagornis mauretanicus" was only named in 2008. It was a slightly distinct and markedly younger species. Its remains have been found in 2.5 Ma Gelasian (Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene, MN17) deposits at Ahl al Oughlam (Morocco).
Additional fossils are placed in "Pelagornis", usually without assignment to species, mainly due to their large size and Miocene age. From the United States, such specimens have been found in the Middle Miocene Calvert Formation of Maryland and Virginia, and in the contemporary Pungo River Formation of the Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina (though at least one other pelagornithid is probably represented among this material too). USNM 244174 (a tarsometatarsus fragment) was found near Charleston, South Carolina and assigned to "P. miocaenus", and the slightly smaller left tarsometatarsal middle trochlea USNM 476044 might also belong here. A broken but fairly complete sternum probably of this genus, specimen LHNB (CCCP)-1, is known from the Serravallian-Tortonian boundary (Middle to Late Miocene) near Costa da Caparica in Portugal. Contemporary are certain specimens
Avalonnectes
"Avalonnectes" is known from the holotype specimen NHMUK 14550, which consists of the posterior portion of a skull, and a nearly complete, three-dimensionally preserved and articulated postcranial skeleton. Another partial postcranial skeleton which was referred to it is AGT uncatalogued. Both specimens were collected at Street, of Somerset, from the Pre-"Planorbis" beds of the Blue Lias Formation of the Lower Lias Group. These beds likely occur below the first occurrence of the ammonite "Psiloceras planorbis". Thus, they probably fall within the earliest Hettangian "P. tilmanni" Chronozone, which is about 199.6-198 million years old, immediately following the Triassic–Jurassic Boundary. Plesiosaurs fossils which were discovered at Street represent the earliest known occurrence of the Plesiosauria. Hence, "Avalonnectes" is one of the oldest plesiosaurs to date.
Pisanosaurus
The fossils of "Pisanosaurus" were discovered in the "Agua de las Catas" locality at the Ischigualasto Formation in La Rioja, Argentina. Originally dated to the Middle Triassic, this formation is now believed to belong to the Late Triassic Carnian stage, deposited approximately 228 to 216.5 million years ago. This specimen was collected by José Fernando Bonaparte, Rafael Herbst and the preparators Martín Vince and Scaglia in 1962, and is housed in the collection of the Laboratorio de Paleontologia de Vertebrados, Instituto "Miguel Lillo", in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina.
Martin Pickford
From 1971 to 1978 Pickford had carried out extensive research in the Tugen Hills under a permit issued by the Kenyan Office of the President. During the surveys Pickford and his team found many important fossils ranging in age from 15 million to 2 million years old. In 1974 he found the first hominid fossil from the 6-million-year-old Lukeino Formation (published in Nature in 1975), a lower molar, which is today included in the hypodigm of Orrorin tugenensis.
Darwinopterus
Darwinopterus (meaning "Darwin's wing") is a genus of pterosaur, discovered in China and named after biologist Charles Darwin. Between 30 and 40 fossil specimens have been identified, all collected from the Tiaojishan Formation, which dates to the middle Jurassic period, 160.89–160.25 Ma ago. The type species, "D. modularis", was described in February 2010. "D. modularis" was the first known pterosaur to display features of both long-tailed ('rhamphorhynchoid') and short-tailed (pterodactyloid) pterosaurs, and was described as a transitional fossil between the two groups. Two additional species, "D. linglongtaensis" and "D. robustodens", were described from the same fossil beds in December 2010 and June 2011, respectively.
Pteranodon
Some very fragmentary fossils belonging to pteranodontian pterosaurs, and possibly "Pteranodon" itself, have also been found on the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States. For example, some bone fragments from the Mooreville Formation of Alabama and the Merchantville Formation of Delaware may have come from "Pteranodon", though they are too incomplete to make a definite identification. Some remains from Japan have also been tentatively attributed to "Pteranodon", but their distance from its known Western Interior Seaway habitat makes this identification unlikely.
"Pteranodon longiceps" would have shared the sky with the giant-crested pterosaur "Nyctosaurus". Compared to "P. longiceps", which was a very common species, "Nyctosaurus" was rare, making up only 3% of pterosaur fossils from the formation. Also less common was the early toothed bird, "Ichthyornis".