* Majorcan midwife toad, an Amphibian, first described from the fossil record.

Such a preserved specimen is called a " fossil " if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10, 000 years ago.

The first Pterodactylus specimen was described by the Italian scientist Cosimo Alessandro Collini in 1784, based on a fossil skeleton unearthed from the Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria.

In 1998, the discovery of one specimen assigned to P. kochi shed light on the life appearance of Pterodactylus, as it preserved unique soft-tissue traits not present in previous fossil skeletons, including long, bristly pycnofibres ( a fur-like body covering known only in pterosaurs ) on the neck, details of an urpatagium ( hind wing membrane between the legs and tail ) that also stretched between the toes as webbing, and a pelican-like throat pouch.

However, it was shown by Bennett that the type specimen later designated for Diopecephalus was a fossil belonging to P. kochi, and no longer thought to be separate from Pterodactylus.

The skull of the specimen is still in the possession of the Natural History Museum in London ( to which the fossil collections of the British Museum were transferred later in the century ), but at some point, it became separated from the rest of the skeleton, the location of which is not known.

The fossil was subsequently described as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus and is the type specimen ( holotype ) of the species, which itself is the type species of the genus.

The low preservation potential of the non-mineralised Onychophora means that they have a sparse fossil record, and crown group representatives are known only from amber — there is a single, partial specimen from the Cretaceous, and a more comprehensive record in Eocene deposits from.

Coelacanths (, adaptation of Modern Latin Cœlacanthus " hollow spine ", from Greek κοῖλ-ος koilos " hollow " + ἄκανθ-α akantha " spine ", referring to the hollow caudal fin rays of the first fossil specimen described and named by Louis Agassiz in 1839 ) are members of an order of fish that includes the oldest known living lineage of Sarcopterygii ( lobe-finned fish and tetrapods ).

The coelacanth has been nicknamed a “ living fossil ”, because it originally was known only through fossils, long before the first discovery of a live specimen.

The fossil record of the coelacanth is unique because coelacanth fossils were found 100 years before the first live specimen was identified.

The earliest formally described fossil specimen is a cranium from the Fur Formation lover-eocene in Denmark ( 54 mya ).

There is only one fossil species documented from the New World, Apis nearctica, known from a single 14-million-year old specimen from Nevada.

Rich in prehistory, fossil specimen of dinosaurs, plants and sealife are prolific throughout the region.

A 3. 2 million year-old, 40 % complete fossil skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis specimen discovered in 1974 was named " Lucy " because the Beatles ' song was being played loudly and repeatedly on a tape recorder in the camp.

A single fossil specimen examined by Legendre and Roth was determined to have an approximate body mass of 201. 8 kg.

As regards other material evidence, the undisputed fossil record of the hoatzins consists of a single backside of the cranium of a fossil hoatzin, specimen UCMP 42823.

Ausia fenestrata is a curious Ediacaran period ( 630 – 542 million years ago ) fossil represented by only one specimen 5 cm long from the Nama Group of Namibia and it has similarity to Burykhia from Ediacaran ( Vendian ) siliciclastic sediments exposed on the Syuzma River of northern Russia.

For example, a Compsognathus fossil was found with a lizard in its stomach, and a Velociraptor specimen was found locked in combat with a Protoceratops ( a type of ornithischian dinosaur ).

UR 501 ( original specimen ), the oldest fossil of Genus Homo

This specimen, as well as another new fossil skull of Ornithomimus, had a keratinous beak with vertical grooves projecting from the bony upper mandible.

found that the head and upper body actually belong to a specimen of the primitive fossil bird Yanornis.

Type specimen for Cimbrophlebia brooksi, a fossil scorpion fly.

* A type specimen is a vernacular term ( not a formally defined term ) typically used for an individual or fossil that is any of the various name-bearing types for a species.

According to the fossil record, Lissamphibia, which includes all modern amphibians and is the only surviving lineage, may have branched off from the extinct groups Temnospondyli and Lepospondyli at some period between the Late Carboniferous and the Early Triassic.

There are large gaps in the fossil record but the discovery of a proto-frog from the Early Permian in Texas in 2008 provided a missing link with many of the characteristics of modern frogs.

A number of fossil cryptobranchids have been found but there are only three living species, the Chinese giant salamander ( Andrias davidianus ), the Japanese giant salamander ( Andrias japonicus ) and the hellbender ( Cryptobranchus alleganiensis ) from North America.

They are present in the lower Cambrian fossil record along with trilobites from the Redlichiida, Corynexochida, and Ptychopariida orders.

According to Scott Simpson, the Gona Project's physical anthropologist, the fossil evidence from the Middle Awash indicates that both A. kadabba and A. ramidus lived in " a mosaic of woodland and grasslands with lakes, swamps and springs nearby ," but further research is needed to determine which habitat Ardipithecus at Gona preferred.

Yellow amber is a hard, translucent, yellow, orange, or brown fossil resin from evergreen trees.

Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being mostly transparent and often containing a higher number of fossil inclusions.

Turritella agate is formed from silicified fossil Elimia tenera ( erroneously considered Turritella ) shells.

70 Tg ( S ) per year in the form of SO < sub > 2 </ sub > comes from fossil fuel combustion and industry, 2. 8 Tg ( S ) from wildfires and 7-8 Tg ( S ) per year from volcanoes.

Mineralized skeletons of bryozoans first appear in rocks from latest Cambrian period, about, making it the last major phylum to appear in the fossil record.

He favorably compares a modern tooth suspected of coming from a Bigfoot to the Meganthropus fossil teeth, noting the worn enamel on the occlusal surface.

Traditionally, the extinct family Viverravidae ( viverravids ) had been thought to be the earliest carnivorans, with fossil records first appearing in the Paleocene of North America about 60 mya, but recently described evidence from cranial morphology now places them outside the order Carnivora.

Plastics are made from fossil hydrocarbons, and carbon fiber, made by pyrolysis of synthetic polyester fibers is used to reinforce plastics to form advanced, lightweight composite materials.

; a trace fossil from the Logan Formation ( Lower Carboniferous ) of Wooster, Ohio.

The country has not discovered sources of fossil fuels — apart from minor coal deposits — but its mountainous terrain and abundant rainfall have permitted the construction of a dozen hydroelectric power plants, making it self-sufficient in all energy needs, except oil for transportation.

Drawing of fossil jaws of Mosasaurus | Mosasaurus hoffmanni, from the Maastrichtian of Limburg ( Netherlands ) | Dutch Limburg, by Dutch geologist Pieter Harting ( 1866 ).

* Flue gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion

Others have interpreted the fossil bearing rocks along Red Deer River in Alberta, Canada, as supporting a gradual extinction of non-avian dinosaurs ; during the last 10 million years of the Cretaceous layers there, the number of dinosaur species seems to have decreased from about 45 to about 12.

Even the exhaust from the burning of fossil fuels is treated via catalysis: Catalytic converters, typically composed of platinum and rhodium, break down some of the more harmful byproducts of automobile exhaust.

In 2006, U. S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion were estimated at nearly 6. 5 billion tons.

" With total world emissions from fossil fuels growing rapidly, the proportion of fossil-fuel emissions absorbed by the oceans since 2000 may have declined by as much as 10 %, indicating that over time the ocean will become " a less efficient sink of manmade carbon.