Archosaur discoveries are comparatively abundant in Texas, and have been recovered in some quantity since E. D. Cope worked the redbeds of the panhandle over a century ago. The holotype specimen of "Protoavis" (TTU P 9200), the paratype (TTU P 9201), and all referred materials, were discovered in the Dockum Group, from the panhandle of Texas. The Dockum dates from the Carnian through the early Norian, in the terminal Triassic and is composed of four units of decreasing age: the Santa Rose Formation, the Tecovas Formation, the Trujillo Formation, the Cooper Canyon Formation, and the Bull Canyon Formation. Many skeletal elements and partial elements of "Protoavis" were collected from the Post (Miller) Quarry of the Bull Canyon Formation in the 1980s and other specimens referred to "Protoavis" were collected from the underlying Kirkpatrick Quarry of the Tecovas Formation. The specimens altogether consists of a partial skull and postcranial remains belonging to possibly several large individuals. The bones were completely freed of the surrounding matrix, and some were heavily reconstructed and the identification of some of the elements have been questioned by other palaeornithologists and palaeontologists.