 The genus thus functioned as a typical "wastebasket taxon".Fossilized remains once assigned to "Cetiosaurus" have mainly been found in England but also in France, Switzerland and Morocco.The first fossils, vertebrae and limb elements, were discovered near Chipping Norton in the early nineteenth century and were reported upon by collector John Kingdon in a letter read on 3 June 1825 to the Geological Society; they were seen as possibly belonging to a whale or crocodile.