For a long time I have had several stones of shell limestone with fossilized imprints of ancient organisms. They were picked up at different times and in different places, now I can't remember. Some were probably found in a limestone quarry, some were brought to me from the Atarsk bows, some, perhaps, were brought from the Crimea.

They have been with me for a long time, my hands just did not reach to photograph and describe. Today the planned walk to the forest was canceled, there was free time and I took some pictures. This is how one of the pebbles looks as a whole. It is small in size, just over 3 cm.

What it consists of used to be the remnants of living organisms from the warm shallow waters that fell to the muddy bottom. Here you can see pieces of shells of ancient mollusks, prints of bryozoans and pieces of the stem of crinoids (sea lilies). Let's figure out which of them is who.

Bryozoans, especially the order Gymnolaemata is easily recognizable by its reticular structure. These are colonies of marine invertebrates, known since the Ordovician period, and still existing in the seas of different salinity. As the name suggests, the colonies of some bryozoans look like a continuous moss blanket. Some bryozoans form crusty and clumpy colonies on hard surfaces (stones, shells, etc.), while others have a fan-shaped or bush-like appearance. Modern bryozoans, for example, look like this:

They are the bulk of the recognizable fragments on the stone. But do not forget, bryozoans are not plants, although they are similar to them, they are full-fledged animals that feed on various microorganisms and diatoms.

Let's take a look at another stone:

Here, in the same way, the bulk of the fossils are reticulated fragments of bryozoans.

In the lower part, in the middle, you can see a round piece with notches and a hole in the center (the same "gear" can be found on the right side in the first photo). This is one of the segments of the stem sea ​​lily(or crinoidea, lat.Crinoidea). These are benthic sedentary animals belonging to the echinoderm type. They are even more similar in appearance to plants - their body consists of a stem, calyx and brachiole - arms.

Most modern crinoid species have lost this stem. During the life of an animal, the stalk consisted of round segments connected by muscles; in a fossil state, they often fall apart. The fossilized segments of sea lilies are called trochites... Because of their similarity to gears, theories about alien contact constantly arise millions of years ago, and trochites are trying to be presented as ancient parts of alien mechanisms. And so they have been known since ancient times, the first written mentions date back to the 17th century. The polygonal segments of the crinoids in the shape of a star were called "stone stars" by the British and made various assumptions about their connection with celestial bodies. On the coast of Northumberland, these fossils are called "St. Cuthbert's rosary." Whole sea lily prints look like this:

Crinoids (photo of user galamish from Yandex.fotok)

Of course, the stone contains a large number of fragments and imprints of shells of various mollusks:

Moreover, they have a completely recognizable shape, which is also characteristic of modern seashells. For example, the shell at the top in the center of the lower image, next to the trochite, is quite similar to a modern scallop.

What a long fossil is in the picture below - I'm at a loss to say. Maybe a piece of the stem, maybe something else.

And just a couple more pictures, try to identify something on them yourself:

Also known and common fossils that you can find, for example, on the banks of rivers are belemnites(popularly called "devil's finger"), which are the remains of the fossilized inner shell of ancient molluscs, which outwardly resemble squid. Well-preserved mother-of-pearl shells or simply imprints of shells of cephalopods are also widely known. ammonites... Their coiled ribbed shells can be from 1 to 2 centimeters to 2 meters in diameter.

Movies like Jurassic Park are kind of great because they are factual. Wait, are they founded? Of course, in the film, the director tries to show dinosaurs and other ancient life forms as accurately as possible. But the fact is that scientists do not know exactly what ancient life looked like, although they are trying to reconstruct it. New discoveries are constantly occurring, shedding light on what we do not know about the first forms of life on Earth - and this sometimes forces us to rewrite textbooks.

Most of us think that when the Earth formed, life immediately appeared in the seas. This is partly true, but no one knows exactly how the first life came about. And having appeared, life immediately began to influence the surface of the planet. Without plants that crumble rocks into sediment, for example, there would not be enough material to form tectonic plates, and therefore continents. Without plants, the Earth could become just a watery world.

Believe it or not, more complex life can even change the structure of global ice ages, making them less severe through “regulatory feedback”. The intermittent pattern of freezing and thawing goes back billions of years when the Earth did not have the complex web of life that exists today. Then the glaciers stretched from the poles to the equator, breaking the entire planetary foundation.

Since then, as more and more life has filled the surface and seas, huge glaciers have formed on the glacial Earth at both poles, stretching a few fingers in latitude terms that never reach the equator.

542 million years ago, something mysterious happened on Earth

Experts call the sudden increase in the diversity and richness of the Earth's fossil record, which began 542 million years ago, the "Cambrian Explosion." He puzzled Charles Darwin. Why did all the ancestors of modern animals appear literally overnight, in a geological sense?

One expert thinks that there was life before the Cambrian, but it didn't have any hard parts. Scientists analyzed soft-bodied Precambrian fossils, some of which have nothing to do with any form of modern life today, as well as young Cambrian soft-bodied fossils from Canada. It turned out that multicellular life was developed at least 50 million years before the Cambrian "explosion". Scientists don't understand where the hard parts came from, perhaps a genetic mutation caused a cascading effect that led to the sudden development of shells and skeletons. However, not everyone agrees with this theory. There is no exact answer to the question of what happened to life on Earth 542 million years ago.

The first land plants could cause a mass extinction

During the Devonian, 150 million years after the Cambrian, it was good to be born a fish at the top of the food chain. Apart from a few lost plants and animals exploring the land, all life lived in the sea. After tens of millions of years, everyone came out of the sea onto land, where tall forests of ferns, mosses and mushrooms appeared.

And then the sea creatures began to die. At least 70% of all invertebrates in the sea have gradually disappeared. The Devonian Extinction has become one of the ten largest mass extinctions in Earth's history.

Many experts believe that land plants were to blame. They say the first forests created soil that shattered rocks into minerals, which eventually leaked into the ocean, causing algal blooms. These algae consumed all the oxygen, and the sea creatures were suffocating. Worse, the algae were then consumed by other organisms and became hydrogen sulfide. He turned the sea water into acid. Plants also could not escape. They sucked enough carbon dioxide out of the air to cause an ice age that wiped out many of them too.

Fortunately, there are a few species left that survived even these hellish conditions at sea or on land.

Ancient life knew how to adapt

There was never a complete extinction of species, even when a massive asteroid hit the planet. For example, in the early days of the Earth, oxygen produced by newfangled cyanobacteria was toxic to many early life forms. While many of the oxygen-haters have died, others have adapted and gotten harder. Extinction happened from time to time, but Ian Malcolm of Jurassic Park was right when he said that life will always find a way to keep going.

According to the fossil record, survival and extinction had a greater impact on demographics. If a large group of species were scattered around the world, there was a chance that at least one or two individuals would survive the extinction. Other conditions include environmental conditions and genetic factors that make a species vulnerable or allow it to adapt.

Horseshoe crabs were the best - they survived four major mass extinctions and countless smaller ones.

The search for Martian fossils is changing our understanding of Earth

What is a Fossil? At first glance, this is all that has been dug out of the ground, but this approach can be erroneous when we try to understand ancient life.

Fossils are difficult to identify. It is sometimes difficult to tell if a bubble on a Precambrian rock is a fossil bacterium or just rock. What is life and how to define its fossil remains? The most interesting thing is that space exploration can help us in this matter.

At the moment, attention is riveted to Mars, because in addition to Earth, this planet offers the most friendly planetary climate for life. Once upon a time there were even rivers and lakes. If life existed in these ancient waters, fossils may have remained. This begs the obvious question. If we are trying to understand what life was like on Earth 542 million years ago, how do we define Martian remains as 4 billion years old?

Astrobiologists are working on this without disdaining the help of paleontologists. Understanding what ancient fossils on Mars might be like allows scientists to hone their attitude towards what is not fossilized on Earth.

Fossil sites

Most of the fossils we saw were probably formed in water. Water is good for making fossils. The land is not very good. In shallow waters near the beach, for example, the abundance of rainfall from rivers and streams quickly buries molluscs and other sea creatures, preserving them.

Tropical forest rain can be as abundant and intense as a shallow sea shelf, but it cannot form many fossils. Plants and animals that die in it will quickly decompose due to moisture. In addition, the predators will quickly take away the corpses, and the rest will be destroyed by wind and rain.

Stagnant water in lowlands such as swamps and lagoons is also suitable because it does not contain much oxygen and few decay organisms live in it. In addition, there is also a shift in fossils towards bodies with hard parts, as well as groups of animals and plants that are large, long-lived, and dispersed over a wide geographic area. Time also affects. Geological processes such as mountain structure and plate subduction tend to erase fossils, making it difficult to find the oldest ones.

Fossils rarely resemble a living thing

The physical processes after a plant or animal dies are complex and messy. There is a separate area of ​​science that studies these processes. And while it certainly helps a lot, it doesn't provide the perfect map of the original living creature. Some intact fossils, such as insects and carnivorous plants trapped in amber, are the exception, but they are all relatively young. For the most part, only a small part of the organism remains. And as far as we know, fossilization occurs only in the hard and hard parts of a plant or animal, so experts must reconstruct the animals from a pair of teeth and, with luck, a few bones.

Paleoartists use fossil data to reconstruct ancient living things, but they fill in the gaps with details taken from modern descendants of a plant or animal. Often new discoveries are confirmed by reconstructions. Sometimes - more often in the case of feathered dinosaurs - the first reconstructions are inaccurate.

Not all fossils are petrified

Scientists love to cling to words. A paleontologist describing a tree 200 million years old that has turned to stone may call it “mineralized” or “replaced” rather than petrified.

Mineralization occurs because there are empty cavities in the tree. Suppose a tree falls into a lake that contains a lot of dissolved minerals from a nearby volcano that has released its ash stuff into the water. These minerals, especially silicates, enter the wood, fill the pores and other cavities, so parts of the wood become trapped in the stone and are preserved.

The tree can also be replaced. This is a longer process. Suppose our tree did not fall into the lake when it fell, but went into the soil. Groundwater began to seep and after a certain geological time, minerals replaced all wood, all woody parts, molecule by molecule. All petrified trees are fine, but paleontologists are getting more information from wood that has undergone molecular replacement, rather than from mineralized wood.

It turns out that the saber-toothed "tiger" was not the only ancient creature with long teeth. Sabretooth is an example of convergent evolution, where unrelated species independently develop the same useful function. Sabertooths were useful for all kinds of predators who had to hunt animals larger than them.

There are many other examples of convergent evolution. Modern giraffes, for example, are not associated with dinosaurs, but have the same long necks as brachiosaurs and other dinosaurs. The long-extinct mammal, Castorocauda, ​​looked and behaved like a modern beaver, although the two are not related.

One of the strangest cases of convergent evolution involves us. Koalas have fingerprints that look just like ours, although they are marsupials (they have bags on their belly) and we are placental (our unborn young are fed through the placenta). Scientists believe that koalas may have developed tiny curls on their toes to make it easier for them to climb trees, as we and our closest monkey relatives have done in the past.

Ancient animals live and thrive today

It often happens that some strange species of animals or plants, which everyone has already thought of as extinct, turns out to be alive and well. We think of them as relics, not suspecting that there are still many ancient organisms on Earth that have practically not undergone any changes.

As we noted, horseshoe crabs have survived many mass extinctions. But they are not alone. The same cyanobacteria that once killed a lot of life on Earth by providing oxygen billions of years ago are also alive and well. Insects also show themselves well as ancient life. For example, rove beetles date back to the Triassic period (more than 200 million years ago). Today, this family of beetles probably contains the most living organisms in the world. And their ancestors were probably familiar with Triassic water bugs, like those that sometimes appear in ponds and scare people.

Most surprisingly, some species of sulfur-producing anaerobic bacteria, which were among the first living organisms on Earth, now live with us. Moreover, they are one of those microbes that inhabit our digestive tract. Luckily for us, Earth's atmosphere has improved dramatically over the years. Or most of them, at least so.

One of the main controversial issues
between creationists and
evolutionists - how were
fossils: gradually, over
million years, or as a result of disasters
planetary scale?

Fossils that scientists
found in different parts of the world,
are represented by a wide variety
forms of life. These are whole organisms,
frozen in ice, and bones or teeth,
hardened as a result
mineralization, and insects,
caught in the thickness of amber, and prints
leaves or other parts of plants, bones
and animal tracks, etc. Often
parts of the skeleton are preserved, but sometimes in
fossils turn and more
soft tissues.
The petrification process appears
a mysterious scientist. After all, no one
managed to reproduce it in conditions
laboratories. Evolutionists proceed from
assumptions that plant remains and
animal remains were in various
layers of the Earth as a result of long
processes. In geology textbooks, usually
the following explanation is given. Process
mineralization occurs as
gradual accumulation of salts in tissues.
Molecules of organic substances,
being washed out, they are replaced by silicon salts.
Examples are usually given
prints of leaves of plants and feathers of birds,
formed by indentation
objects into soft silt, which then,
hardening, it turned into stone.
Obviously, animals whose corpses
found fully preserved in
blocks of ice, died suddenly.
For a more complete understanding
fossilization process
let's look at some examples. It is known that all
living creatures that have died today
decompose. A sleeping fish floats on
the surface of the water and begins to gradually
succumb to decomposition processes. Corpses
dead animals on land or
eaten by predators, or quickly
decompose. Dead plants also
collapse into relatively short
periods of time.
And how the process took place in the past
fossil formation? Most
the explanation is logical, according to
to which living beings were
quickly buried as a result
tidal activity, massive
land shifts, as well as eruptions
volcanoes on a global scale.
Important factors in subsequent
fossilization processes were very high
temperature and pressure. Sedimentary layers
formed, thus, not
gradually, over millions of years, and
could have been the result of a cataclysm.
The fossil record is full of examples
confirming this assumption. How
already mentioned above, clusters
fossils in different parts of the planet
indicate that living organisms
once suddenly died. Developing this
thought, let's turn to examples.
Fossilized fish remains
Well-preserved clusters
fish of a wide variety of species
discovered by scientists in many parts
planets. How did the fish end up in those
areas where there is no water these days,
for example, high in the mountains? Geologists
proposed a theory according to which in
huge masses over millions of years
sushi gradually dropped below the level
sea, leaving these sites
were flooded with water. Then
the land has risen again. It would seem
confirmed by finds on land of footprints
marine life. Evolutionary geologists
claim that such "burials"
formed in sedimentary rocks in
as a result of the processes taking place on
Earth for millions of years.
This explanation leaves without
answer a series of questions. Findings
paleontologists say that the death
flora and fauna occurred suddenly.
Indeed, research
countless fossilized fish remains
confirms that their death has come
instantly. Similar testimonies were
discovered in the Red Sandstone area
(United Kingdom). This region is described as
a huge cemetery of aquatic organisms,
at the same time, one and the same was found everywhere
the same picture of destruction. Deposition
red sandstone covering
area of ​​approximately 25,000 sq. km,
more than 45 m thick, striking in size
disaster. Moreover, the poses in which
once dead fish froze
(for example, tensely stretched
spines), they say that fish
died in convulsions.
An identical picture is observed in
northern Italy. And here the facts speak of
sudden mass death of fish. In layers
lime slate have been discovered
thousands of petrified skeletons, and
these skeletons turned out to be good
preserved and lying close
to each other. Even prints have survived
remnants of scales, which suggests that
the fish were buried before their
soft tissues began to decompose.
Rapid burial of bivalves
shellfish
Another example of quick doom
marine organisms - bivalve
shellfish. Their "graveyards" are also
found in different regions of the Earth.
Moreover, they were found petrified, with
closed flaps. When these shellfish
die, then after a few hours both
shell halves start
open up. What is bivalve
mollusks were closed
sash, indicates that they
were buried alive. An example is
finds - fossilized molluscs,
found near Kholkirk (province
Alberta, Canada). Many of these
traces of shellfish
molten rock.
There are other examples that
creatures that once lived in the sea
preserved in molten lava,
poured out to the bottom of the ocean. Bible
explains why this happened: when
the "springs of the great abyss" were opened,
the entire surface of the Earth
volcanic eruptions that engulfed
both land and ocean.
Fossilized shark remains
The last example of instant
death of marine animals - petrified
shark remains found in Ohio
(USA). In rocky strata
remains were found tens of meters
sharks of various sizes. It's obvious that
death overtook them in their natural
swimming position - belly down. Weight
silt flattened them to a thickness of 6 mm and
smaller. How sharks could end up in a layer
sludge as a result of gradual homogeneous
processes that took place during
million years? Just an event like
The Flood, about which
tells the bible, can explain
us the facts below.
Petrified wood and
leaf prints
Pieces of wood turned
from organic material to stone,
called petrified wood. it
one of the most common
fossils. Moreover, in some
cases the wood is so well preserved,
that even annual rings can be discerned,
and on the leaf prints - the location
veins and individual cells.
The area where they were discovered
numerous fossils,
preserved soft tissues of plants and
animals, is Drumheller,
(province of Alberta, Canada). Strongly
intersected Drumheller surface
formed by layers of volcanic ash and
silt, which are interspersed with small
coal seams. Evolutionists
believe that these layers represent
deposit over millions
years. Drumheller is world renowned for
that petrified
remains of dinosaurs.
In Drumheller,
fossilized remains of marine organisms
- bivalve molluscs and oysters, and
also pieces of petrified wood. V
lumps of magnetic iron ore almost always
some forms can be found
petrified life.
Usually the formation of magnetic
iron ore is explained by action
gradual molecular process
migration. However, studying this
material allows you to discover
excellent leaf prints,
preserved pieces of wood, as well as
other plant tissues. So, on one
from the wreckage we examined
iron ore found in Drumheller,
there was a clear impression of a dragonfly's wing.
Hence, the process that provided
preservation of these tiny structural
parts could not leak for
long time like this
suggests uniformitarian geology.
Analysis of magnetic iron ore showed that
these rocks were formed as a result
exposure to high temperatures, and not
molecular migration process.
The biblical model suggests
more logical explanation
what happened. During the World
Flood when layers of volcanic ash and
silt was deposited under the influence of tidal
waves, pieces of molten
sulfur ("the windows of heaven were opened," Gen.
7:11). As a result, plants and animals
whose remains are found today by scientists,
were captured by this mass and
buried in it.
Petrified trees
There are places where have been discovered
clusters of petrified trees.
The famous Stone Forest in the south
eastern Arizona (USA) is known for
that the largest
petrified trees. The length of their trunks
sometimes reaches more than 60 m. These trees
were found tens of meters from
flood-precipitated products
volcanic activity. Trunks
pressed tightly together, as it happens
in the rubble.
What happened to these trees?
According to the usual explanation,
millions of years ago, this zone represented
a swampy area,
crossed by streams and rivers. As
how river waters deposited sediments from
sand, silt and volcanic ash, thousands
logs, animal bones, as well as parts
plants appeared under them and with
time were petrified.
Such a theory does not provide a convincing
explanations. Rivers and streams laying
sediments these days, do not provide
no conditions necessary for the process
fossil formation, nor
mechanism for large-scale
destruction like that
happened in the past. Huge masses
volcanic ash deposited in
Stone Forest during floods,
appear to be the result
active volcanic activity,
much more powerful and large-scale than
these days. Probably the reasons
caused massive death of giant
trees should be looked for in the global
disasters, which is what the Bible says.
Clusters of Giant Petrified
trees were also found in
Yellowstone national park
(USA). These trees were covered
eruptive breccia - cemented
clastic rock - and petrified
under this layer. Today there are no such
big trees as they were
fossil ancestors. It is obvious that here too
vegetation died suddenly.
Layered fossils
Another indication that
the death of trees was rapid, are
trunks found submerged more
than in one layer. These are the so-called
layered fossils.
An example of such a fossil is -
wood found in coal
reservoir in Tennessee (USA). About it
the opening was told in the article "Will
is coal tomorrow's black gold? "
published in the August issue
National Geographic magazine for 1975.
The photo shows the trunk of a large
tree, immersed in a narrow
coal seam. The tree passes
vertically through a four-meter layer
sandstone. Evolutionary geologists
explain the formation of coal
formation and sandstone layer by action
homogeneous processes, as a result
which these deposits were formed for
millions of years. However, the fact that it is
the tree is placed in layers, indicates
that the deposition of these layers has occurred
relatively quickly - during this time
the wood did not have time to rot.
The death of the dinosaurs
There are other examples too,
proving that the cause of death
flora and fauna were a disaster.
For example, dinosaur remains are often
find in positions allowing
assume that the animals overtook
sudden violent death.
Some of them have been discovered in
flood sediments, their necks and tails
were broken, but the bodies were
located downstream of the water.
The corpses of platypus dinosaurs
found buried in layers
volcanic ash and silt, and position
their bodies were naturally floating
animals.
Evolutionists have developed
complex theories to explain
why animals that did not live in water,
died in her a violent death.
There are too many examples like this to
this phenomenon could be attributed to
local disasters. Dinosaurs
found not only in the besieged
floods layers, but also in blocks of magnetic
iron ore, which, apparently, fell from
sky.
In the article "Dinosaur bones from
rock ", published in
to the Saskatoon Star newspaper on August 26, 1981,
talking about a dinosaur found near
Huxley (Alberta, Canada) in the 80s
ton piece of magnetic iron ore. In this
the article says:
"In addition to petrified bones, scientists
found petrified skin prints
dinosaur, allowing them to judge
the appearance of the animal. They, moreover,
discovered and recovered a number of petrified
footprints - traces of the last steps
this carnivore made by him before
death. "
How a theory of uniformitarianism could
explain the presence of skin and prints
feet in rock? Logically it is
can only be explained by the sudden
death of an animal and subsequent
petrification of his remains. Scientists-
evolutionists suggested
numerous hypotheses of the reasons
extinction of dinosaurs, explaining them
death by the action of some stretched
time of processes. Some of them
believed to be the cause of extinction
gradual change in climatic
conditions, others believe that the reason
it was sickness and lack of food.
Theory proposed by Louis
Alvarez, suggests that dinosaurs,
like other life forms, died in
asteroid collision or
comets with the Earth. Since geologists
evolutionists believe that dinosaurs
disappeared 65 million years ago, Alvarez
believes that this cataclysm happened
at the same time. Alvarez in his evidence
relied on the fact that in the remains
dinosaurs scientists discovered rubidium,
which in significant concentrations
is present in cosmic bodies.
New theory of disappearance
dinosaurs paved the way for rethinking ideas
uniformitarianism. Many scientists
willing to revise
some of their ideas and evaluating
facts based on an unbiased approach,
conclude that the Earth has undergone
total devastation as a result
enormous destruction under the influence
cosmic forces. It is in full
agree with what the Bible says about
events of the past.
Frozen fossils
In the 1940s in the Fairbanks area
(Alaska, USA) under development
gold deposits in frozen
the swamp was excavated up to
one mile. At the same time, it turned out that the lumps
ice contains a huge amount
Plants and Animals, McGoven, author
the book "Primitive man in the New
Light ”, on p. 151 comments like this
huge accumulations of dead animals:
“Their number is amazing. They
lie in a frozen entwined mass,
dotted with uprooted
trees. It appears that they
died, were mutilated at
catastrophic circumstances.
Skin, ligaments, wool, soft
fabrics ".
In the permafrost zone of the Northern
Remains are often found in Siberia and Alaska
mammoths. In some places of the bones
there are so many mammoths that they lie fat
layer. In some places, mammoths were frozen into the ice, in
elsewhere - in sedimentary layers.
Study of the remains of these large
mammals shows that they
were frozen very quickly: in
undigested in their stomachs
food. Herbs were found in the mouth
(bells, buttercups). Many corpses
were found torn apart,
dismembered, frozen into the ice.
In addition to mammoths, in Siberia and
Alaska also met frozen in ice
remains of camels, sheep, rhinos,
bison, horses and lions. it
confirms the picture of the death that befell
millions of animals as a result
disaster.
Happening nowhere in the world now
events similar to those about which
mentioned above. But today the earthly layers
more and more millions of remains are being discovered
animals and plants, and often they
brought together and form huge
"Cemeteries". Evolutionists are not in
able to explain this phenomenon, since
the theory of evolution is based on the concept
uniformitarianism. The above facts
confirm the biblical premise
catastrophes of a global scale.
From the book "Evidence of Creation
the world "Author: J.
S. McLean and others.

If someone is lucky enough to find fossilized shells on the beach, then it is not difficult to recognize them. But there are also many fossils, looking at which it is difficult to guess what they were. The problem is compounded by the fact that many of the fossils are incomplete or poorly preserved. Sometimes even scientists are in doubt. In our review of 10 fossils that have been unrecognized for many decades.

1. Ammonites

Fossilized ammonites are fairly common today, but for thousands of years they have been mistaken for anything other than shellfish. The ancient Greeks believed that these were ram's horns, and named the Ammonites after the Egyptian god Amun, who was depicted with approximately the same horns. The ancient Chinese called them horn stones for a similar reason. In Nepal, fossilized ammonites were considered a shrine left by the god Vishnu. The Vikings considered them the sacred fossilized offspring of the world serpent Jormungard.

In the Middle Ages, ammonites were known in Europe as serpentine stones, as it was believed that they were the petrified bodies of coiled serpents that were turned into stone by Christian saints. Today it became known that ammonites are only fossilized shells of creatures that became extinct about four hundred million years ago.

2. Fish teeth

Fossil teeth of fish in different centuries were considered different objects. Some ancient fish species had flat molars for crushing molluscs. In Greece, and later in most of Europe, the fossilized remains of such teeth were considered magic stones, and they were often called toad stones. Such teeth were used in jewelry and believed to cure epilepsy and poisoning. In Japan, the fossilized flat and sharp teeth of sharks were considered the claws of the terrible monster tengu, in Europe the teeth were the tongue of the devil.

3. Trees

Lepidodendron is an ancient tree whose bark was covered with large flat scales, like a pine cone. The leaves of this tree themselves were similar to stems, so lepidodendron is considered more a grass than a tree. Most of the coal deposits in Europe are the remains of these ancient plants. Previously, whole fossilized trunks of lepidodendrons were often found, the length of such a trunk could be up to thirty meters, and the thickness - about a meter. In the 19th century, they were passed off as the bodies of snakes and dragons.

4. Foraminifera

On the Pacific beaches in southern Japan, you can find completely unusual grains of sand. Many of them are in the form of tiny stars, less than a millimeter in diameter. Local legends claim that these are the remains of unfortunate children from the heavenly union of two stars. These star children either died from falling to the ground or were killed by a monstrous serpent that lives in the sea near the Japanese island of Okinawa. In fact, these tiny stars are the remains of the thorny shells of another life form: an amoeba-like creature called foraminifera.

5. Protoceratops

Dinosaurs called protoceratops were related to the more famous Triceratops. They walked on four legs and were about the size of a large dog, although much heavier. Most protoceratops had a large skull with a bird's beak and a bony frill growing out of the back of the skull. To people unfamiliar with dinosaurs, the surviving skeletons of the protoceratops resembled fantastic and bizarre creatures. Due to their size, these dinosaurs were considered small lions with hooked beaks like an eagle. It is possible that it is the protoceratops that are the prototype of the mythical griffins.

6. Belemnites

Belemnites were ancient animals that resembled squid. Unlike squid, they had a skeleton, and their ten tentacles were all the same length, and they were covered with tiny hooks. Belemnites lived at the same time as dinosaurs, inhabiting the seas. The most common are the fossilized parts of belemnite skeletons that look like long bullets. In Europe, people thought that these fossils were the thunderbolts of the gods that fell to the ground. Other people thought that the belemnites belonged to elves, not gods, considering them to be elf fingers, fairy candles, or elf arrows.

7. Anchisaurus

Anchisaurus were one of the earliest dinosaur species. They were herbivores with long necks and tails, and were also early relatives of the more famous brontosaurus and diplodocus. Only, unlike them, the size of the Anchisaurs was only 2m. Paradoxically, but initially the bones of these dinosaurs were mistaken for the bones of a primitive human ancestor.

8. Mastodons and mammoths

A few thousand years ago, giant mammoths and mastodons roamed the icy land. They looked like hairy elephants with huge tusks. Like modern elephants, these animals had very developed strong trunks, which is why the structure of the skeleton of these animals suggested a large hole in the skull. People who have never seen elephants have assumed that these huge fossilized skulls with a giant opening in the front belong to the Cyclops, mythical giant one-eyed humanoid.

9. Sea urchins

Sea urchins are spiny, spherical creatures that are commonly found along the shores of the sea. Sea urchins have existed for hundreds of millions of years, and many fossils have remained from their ancient ancestors. In England, such fossils were mistaken for supernatural crowns, loaves of bread, or magical snake eggs. In Denmark, they were considered thunderstones because they supposedly gave off moisture before violent storms.

10. Hominids

The ancestors of modern humans left behind many fossils throughout the earth. Due to their apparent inconsistency with human bones, such fossils were often considered evidence of various humanoid mythical creatures mentioned in the Bible, such as giants and demons. In other cultures, the skeletons of Neanderthals found have given rise to legends about the yeti and other hominid creatures.

Since 1822, thousands of animals have been discovered that were previously unknown, many of which are called "living fossils." This is the name given to animals that were known only from their fossilized bones, and which were supposedly extinct for millions of years and were used as "proof" of evolution. But then it was discovered, much to the dismay of scientists, that these animals live today in different parts of the world.

From 12000 fossilized insects are much like living insect species that exist today.

Fossils of various insects. Evolutionists date them to tens of millions of years. As can be seen from the photographs, insects have also not changed to this day - ancient specimens are so similar to modern ones that they are easily recognizable even without comparison with insects living today. There is a complete absence of evolution. And this is after (estimated) tens and hundreds of millions of generations! During the time that the dragonfly depicted in the photographs remained unchanged to this day, the lizards, according to evolution, should have turned into kangaroos, elephants, hummingbirds, penguins and whales !!!

Fossilized bees, ants, cicadas, beetles or cockroaches are almost always identical (although often larger in size) to their modern descendants. The same can be said for arachnids and centipedes.

If all of these species have not evolved in 50 million, 100 million, or even 200 million years, then why should we believe that they (or other organisms) have evolved at all?

Other notable living fossils include the tuatara (presumably extinct from the Cretaceous period until it was found alive in New Zealand), Lepidocaris crustaceans (found only fossilized in Devonian rocks), Lingula brachiopods (“extinct” from the Ordovician period) , and even trilobite (the main leading fossil, which dates back to the even more ancient Cambrian period).

If all of these species have not evolved in 50 million, 100 million, or even 200 million years, then why should we believe that they (or other organisms) have evolved at all? There have been only small changes as a result of variation, but not large-scale changes as evolution implies.

The list goes on and on; the fossil record contains many examples of different animal species that have not changed. Darwin tried to cover up this difficulty when he said that the fossil record was incomplete, but it was incomplete then and remains incomplete today. What we know about living fossils, then and now, is representative of the fossil record.