Many of the communities of North America have stories regarding fossils, as well as stories about mammoths and other extinct megafauna. For example, the Nuxalk have a flood story, and fossils are explained as having been created during the flood. Mammoths are described in other stories both by the Nuxalk, and by the stories of many/most Athapascan tribes (various Dene groups), whose stories also include giant beaver and other animals as well. Nuxalk stories include large flying animals as well as, in translation, "a giant snake, who when he walked the ground shook, and when his joints moved it sounded like a flock of geese taking off". These stories are claimed to be the result of seeing the animals, though I suspect most would argue that it's more likely the result of finding fossils of animals that hinted at this sort of size and build. The Nuxalk (and other groups) also have stories that sound very much like pterodactyls (large, flying, big beaks, walk on the ends of the wings, extinct) so one has to assume that these stories also had an origin, possibly in fossils, rather than being made out of whole cloth.

My sources for these stories are unfortunately first hand accounts and unpublished linguistic documentation in the Nuxalk language and a conversation about megafauna with two Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in out of Dawson City, as well as the tour guides at the Beringia exhibit.