A fossil is evidence preserved from past life, but different fossils answer different questions. Bones and shells record body structure; footprints and burrows record activity; the surrounding rock helps establish age and setting. The guides here explain how those clues are collected and interpreted without turning an inference into a direct observation.
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How palaeontologists reconstruct extinct animal diets
Learn how teeth, wear, isotopes, gut contents, coprolites and bite marks reveal the diets of extinct animals, and where each line of evidence stops.
Who owns a discovered fossil?
Who owns a fossil or dinosaur bone: how country, land status, collection permits, scientific value, sale and export change the answer.
Fossil theft and illegal trade
How fossils enter illegal markets, why a bone without provenance loses scientific value, and how smuggled dinosaur remains are identified and returned.
Dinosaurs in amber
What a feathered non-avian dinosaur tail, bird wings and isolated feathers in Burmese amber reveal, and why they do not preserve usable dinosaur DNA.
Dinosaur bonebeds and mass death assemblages
How dinosaur bonebeds form through floods, drought, mud traps, transport and repeated accumulation, and what they can reveal about populations.
What does nomen dubium mean?
Understand nomen dubium, why a name-bearing fossil may be non-diagnostic, how the term differs from nomen nudum and synonymy, and whether a doubtful name can recover.
What is a holotype in palaeontology?
Learn how a holotype fixes a scientific name, what fossils can serve as types, and how holotypes differ from paratypes, syntypes, lectotypes and neotypes.
How can AI help palaeontologists study fossils?
How machine-learning tools can segment CT scans, compare fossil fragments and search images, and why their outputs still need specimen context and expert review.
Found a possible fossil? Preserve its context first
How to document a possible fossil, protect the site and contact a local museum or authority. Collection rules vary by location, so leave excavation and removal to qualified people.
Why are so many fossils found in deserts?
Learn how ancient environments, exposed rock and erosion make arid regions important places to find fossils, and why a desert landscape does not explain how a fossil formed.
What ancient rubbish can tell us about everyday life
Food scraps, broken pottery and discarded tools can reveal daily routines, but archaeologists first ask how each refuse deposit formed and moved.
Early dinosaur discoveries: before the name Dinosauria
How fragmentary fossils, Megalosaurus, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus led nineteenth-century scientists to recognise Dinosauria as a distinct group.
How dinosaur excavations work
Follow how palaeontologists locate, document, excavate, protect and prepare dinosaur fossils, and why field context matters as much as the bones.
Aachenosaurus: the dinosaur name based on fossil wood
How a fragment of silicified wood was described as the hadrosaur Aachenosaurus in 1888, and how re-examination corrected the identification.
Serendipaceratops: when mathematics meets a fragmentary bone
How measurements supported a ceratopsian interpretation of an Australian fossil ulna, why later studies challenged it, and what the current evidence can establish.
The age of giant trees and insects
Explore Carboniferous coal forests, their giant lycopsids and horsetails, huge griffinflies, Arthropleura, coal formation and eventual decline.
Dinosaur eggs, nests and hatchlings
What dinosaur eggs, nests, embryos and brooding adults reveal about shells, incubation, hatching and parental care, with clear limits on each inference.
From excavation to preservation: what happens to a dinosaur fossil?
How fossil preparation, conservation records, collections and responsible stewardship keep dinosaur specimens useful for research and public display.
Other fossil reptiles and early archosaurs A to Z
Browse detailed profiles of Permian and Triassic reptiles with filters for period, diet, lineage and region.
How do palaeozoology and palaeobotany work together?
How fossil animals, plants and geological context help researchers reconstruct ancient organisms and ecosystems, and where the evidence has limits.
How do index fossils help date rocks?
How short-lived, widely distributed fossils help geologists correlate rock layers, build relative timelines and work alongside radiometric dates.
How dinosaur discoveries reshaped Europe’s fossil record
Trace European dinosaur discovery from Buckland and Mantell to the Bernissart iguanodonts, and learn why a famous first description was only the beginning.
What made Late Cretaceous Mongolia so rich in dinosaur fossils?
Explore the distinct Late Cretaceous fossil landscapes of Mongolia, from the Djadokhta record of Velociraptor to Nemegt deposits with Tarbosaurus.
Early Cretaceous North Africa: rivers, fossils and faunas
What fossil sites in Niger reveal about Early Cretaceous landscapes, and why specimens from separate formations should not be merged into one scene.
Early Jurassic dinosaurs of China: the Lufeng Basin record
Yunnan's Lufeng Basin preserves a diverse Early Jurassic vertebrate record, including sauropodomorphs, theropods and other animals.
Ghost Ranch: what the Coelophysis bonebed really tells us
The Ghost Ranch Coelophysis quarry preserves a remarkable Late Triassic bonebed, but its fossils do not prove a herd, flash flood or cannibalism.
How are dinosaur fossils excavated?
A step-by-step guide to dinosaur fossil excavation, from locating bone in rock to mapping, jacketing, laboratory preparation and collection records.
African dinosaur discoveries and their changing record
How fossil discoveries from Tendaguru, North Africa and the Sahara changed the picture of African dinosaurs, and how expedition history shapes the collections today.
North American dinosaur discoveries from Leidy to Sue
From Hadrosaurus and the Bone Wars to western quarry work and Sue the T. rex, follow how North American discoveries changed dinosaur science.
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Frequently asked questions
Are all fossils bones?
No. Fossils include shells, teeth, leaves, pollen, footprints, burrows, coprolites and microscopic structures, as well as mineralised bones.
Can a footprint identify the exact animal that made it?
Usually it identifies a trackmaker with some uncertainty. A footprint can preserve foot shape and movement, but it rarely preserves a diagnostic skeleton from the same individual.
Why does the rock around a fossil matter?
The rock and its position in a sequence help establish geological age, depositional environment and whether nearby fossils came from the same layer.
Does a complete skeleton tell the whole story?
No. A skeleton preserves anatomy, but diet, behaviour, colour and social life need other evidence. Even an articulated fossil can be affected by burial and preservation.