Fossils

Fossils are MOST LIKELY to form when the body of an animal

• is very large.
• is buried deep in the soil.
• is floating in a lake.
• is lying on the ground in the desert.

What can fossils teach us about animals?

• what color animals were long ago
• what animals sounded like
• how animals lived longed ago
• how animals changed over time

A scientist finds a fossil of a fish on the top of a mountain. What could explain how the fish fossil got there?

• There were fish once living on the mountain.
• Someone put the fossil there.
• The mountain was once under the sea.
• The fish once had lungs.

Where are the fossil bones and teeth of animals formed?

• in the trunks of trees
• in layers of sediment
• in chunks of amber
• in clay impressions

What happens FIRST when a fossil is formed in rocks?

• Minerals replace the bones and teeth
• Sediments cover the animal
• The minerals harden into a fossil
• The animal decays

What happens when a group of animals become extinct?

• All of its members have died.
• Only a few of its members are still living.
• The animals can no longer lay eggs.
• All of its members move to another place

Lily sees a skeleton of a dinosaur at a museum. What is true about the bones that makeup the skeleton?

• The bones are made up of minerals.
• The bones are those of the dinosaur itself.
• The bones were formed from mud that hardened.
• The bones are made up of amber.

Fossils show us that

• all animals turn into rocks when they die.
• some animals lived in the ground.
• some animals lived long ago that were different from the ones living today.
• prehistoric animals were not related to animals that live today.

When might an organism become a fossil?

• As soon as the organism dies.
• When an organism becomes extinct.
• When an organism gets eaten.
• If it was quickly buried a very long time ago.

A snail lives in the ocean. One day, it dies and its body falls to the sea floor. After a very long time, the dead snail is completely buried under sand that has turned to hard rock. What part of the snail becomes a fossil?

• its soft body
• the hard shell
• the entire snail
• none of it