Fossil Specimen Types
Browse body fossils, trace fossils, mineral replacements, impressions, and inclusions by the evidence they preserve.
Start broad, then narrow carefully.
Commercial labels often jump straight to a species. Strong identification begins with the fossil group, anatomical element, preservation style, matrix, geologic age, and locality.
Ammonite Fossils
Coiled cephalopod shells from many Mesozoic seas, collected as natural, prepared, polished, split, or iridescent specimens.
Open guide →Trilobite Fossils
Extinct marine arthropods whose cephalon, thorax, pygidium, eyes, spines, and preparation boundaries carry the identification evidence.
Open guide →Fossil Shark Teeth
Dental fossils identified through crown shape, cutting edges, serrations, root form, position in the jaw, locality, and geologic context.
Open guide →Megalodon Teeth
Large fossil shark teeth whose value depends on exact position, size, enamel, serrations, root, bourlette, repair, and reliable provenance.
Open guide →Dinosaur Teeth
Vertebrate fossils that require especially careful legality, locality, restoration, and anatomical identification review.
Open guide →Dinosaur Bone
Fragments, identifiable elements, and prepared bones whose scientific and legal context matters more than dramatic marketing.
Open guide →Fossil Fish
Whole fish, partial skeletons, scales, teeth, and plates preserved in shale, limestone, concretions, or phosphate.
Open guide →Plant Fossils
Leaves, ferns, cones, seeds, stems, bark, and wood preserved as impressions, compressions, coalified films, or mineral replacements.
Open guide →Petrified Wood
Mineralized wood collected as rough branches, slabs, rounds, polished displays, and scientifically informative growth structures.
Open guide →Amber With Inclusions
Fossil resin containing insects, plants, bubbles, debris, or other inclusions, with significant authenticity and ethical sourcing concerns.
Open guide →Crinoid Fossils
Stem segments, calyces, arms, crowns, and colony plates from stalked echinoderms common in many Paleozoic marine rocks.
Open guide →Brachiopod Fossils
Marine shells with bilateral symmetry through each valve, valuable for morphology, age, and assemblage context.
Open guide →Straight-Shelled Nautiloids
Orthoconic cephalopods commonly marketed as “Orthoceras,” often polished in Moroccan limestone and requiring careful labeling.
Open guide →Fossil Coral
Colonial and solitary coral skeletons identified through corallite shape, septa, walls, growth form, and geologic context.
Open guide →Fossil Echinoids & Sand Dollars
Sea urchins, heart urchins, and sand dollars recognized by plate patterns, ambulacra, tubercles, and test form.
Open guide →Trace Fossils
Tracks, burrows, trails, borings, coprolites, nests, and feeding traces that record behavior rather than body parts.
Open guide →Coprolites
Fossilized fecal material identified through shape, inclusions, chemistry, locality, and comparative context rather than appearance alone.
Open guide →Stromatolites
Layered microbial structures whose biological interpretation depends on lamination, growth form, sedimentary context, and locality.
Open guide →Fossil Mammal Material
Teeth, jaws, bones, tusk fragments, and Ice Age remains that demand legal sourcing, anatomical caution, and conservation awareness.
Open guide →Fossil Insects
Insects preserved in amber, shale, limestone, and fine lake deposits, where minute anatomy and provenance are critical.
Open guide →