Trilobite Fossil

Photograph by James L. Amos

Trilobites, like this perfectly preserved specimen at South Dakota's Black Hills Institute of Geological Research,
were among the most successful organisms ever to populate Earth. These familiar marine arthropods first
arose about 545 million years ago in the early Cambrian and thrived throughout the world's oceans until they
were wiped out in the Permian extinctions about 250 million years ago.

Horsetail Fossil
Photograph by John Cancalosi/Alamy
Perfectly preserved for more than 300 million years, a horsetail carries secrets from the Carboniferous period.
Primitive vascular plants, horsetails (genusEquisetum) are often found in coal deposits.

This is a Mene rhombeus, a beautifully-preserved fossil fish from the famous Monte Bolca
(or Pesciara) site, in Verona, Italy.

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dinosauria chordata tyrannosauridae saurischia coelurosauria tyrannosaurinae tyrannosauroidea

Paleontologists work among some of the hundreds of fossilized skeletons at Nebraska's Ashfall Fossil Beds.
The site was recently declared a national natural landmark, the first such landmark to be designated in almost
two decades.

Mexican scientists are studying a complete fossil of

a lizard that lived some 23 million years ago and whose soft tissue remains have been
preserved in amber.
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO

The fossil of a male spider, pictured, was found on the site of Daohugou in Inner
Mongolia. It was discovered in the same place as a female spider fossil from 2011.
Spider fossils are rare because their bodies are soft, yet this pair was found in
volcanic deposits and may have been buried at the bottom of a lake.

TIL that an entirely new family of purple frogs was discovered in Southern India in
2003.They are living fossils.

Sandstone with fossil shells.

Fossil snails known as turritellid gastropods. The snails are about 13 million years old
and represent a class of marine organisms that contribute substantially to fossil marine
diversity.