Did Most Plants & Animals Leave Fossils?
- Humid regions don't yield many fossils due to the rapid rate of decay, and mountainous areas, with their tendency to erosion, are also poor places to find fossils. Plants and animals in arid climates such as deserts were more likely to become fossilized. Very cold areas with permafrost sometimes yield fossils that have remained frozen and are well preserved.
- The most common kinds of fossils came from the hard, durable parts of plants and animals. Fossils include teeth, bones, shells, hard pieces from insects and the woody sections of plants. Fossils can also be impressions left by organisms, such as the shape of a leaf or the footprints from an animal. Soft tissue such as muscles and skin or fragile plant material did not remain when left to the elements. Some fossils in protected conditions do contain such material, such as woolly mammoths dug out of Arctic ice, or insects preserved in amber, which is hardened tree resin.
- Scientists in the field of taphonomy study how plants and animals change after death and how they are fossilized. Their research shows that most organisms are not preserved as fossils. The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management notes, "99 percent of all organisms that ever lived are believed to be extinct. Less than 1 percent ever become fossilized."
