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🦁 Animal world πŸ¦– Prehistoric animals

Fossils

Fossils

πŸ“– In short

A fossil is the remains or trace of a plant or animal that lived thousands or millions of years ago, kept inside rock. It might be a shell, a bone, a leaf or even a footprint! Fossils tell us what life on Earth was like long ago.

🀩 Did you know?

  • The oldest known fossils are of tiny living things that lived more than 3 billion years ago.
  • The oldest vertebrate fossils are fish about 500 million years old.
  • You can find fossils of sea shells on mountain tops, because those places were once under the sea!
  • A whole mammoth was found frozen in the ice of Siberia.

πŸ”Ž Find out more

🌟 How does a fossil form?

When an animal dies and is quickly buried in mud or sand, its soft parts rot away, leaving the bones or shell. Over a very long time the mud turns to rock, and the bones turn to stone in the same shape.

πŸ” Fossils in amber

Sometimes a little insect gets stuck in sticky tree resin, which hardens into a clear yellow stone called amber, and the insect stays whole inside it for millions of years.

πŸ’‘ Tracks that tell stories

Not all fossils are bones: dinosaur footprints in mud that turned to rock tell us how they walked, and whether they walked alone or in groups.

🎯 Fossil hunters

A scientist who studies fossils is called a paleontologist. They dig carefully and use a small brush to clean the fossil without breaking it.

πŸ“Έ More pictures

Fossils
Fossils
Fossils

🧩 Test yourself

1 What is a fossil?

2 What do we call hardened resin that insects sometimes get trapped in?

3 The oldest known fossils are of tiny living things that lived more than ?? billion years ago.

4 Which picture shows β€œFossils”?

🦁 Discover more

πŸ“· Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons