Paleontology
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Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, me
Bust of the paleontologist Georges Cuvier (left) and a cast skeleton of Palaeotherium magnum (named by Cuvier in 1804, right), Cuvier Museum of Montbéliard
The Dodo of Mauritius which has gone extinct in modern times
Cuvier's 1812 unpublished illustration of the extinct mammal Anoplotherium
Ernst Haeckel's "tree of life", illustrating an early understanding of how evolution relates to classification
Fossil
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A fossil is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, object
Ceratopsian skulls are common in the Dzungarian Gate mountain pass in Asia, an area once famous for gold mines and cold winds. This has been attributed to legends of both gryphons and the land of Hyperborea.
Fossil shells from the cretaceous era sea urchin, Micraster, were used in medieval times as both shepherd's crowns to protect houses, and as painted fairy loaves by bakers to bring luck to their bread-making.
Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus from the 1834 Czech edition of Cuvier's Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe