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© Oklahoma
University
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Fossil of Ovis catclawensis, which belongs
to the family of bighorn sheep, but much larger than the modern
bighorn sheep. It lived in the Pleistocene epoch.
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A fossil is any evidence of past life. Fossils formed from animal bodies
or their imprints are called body fossils. When people think about fossils,
they usually think about body fossils. Trace fossils are another kind
of fossil. A trace fossil is any evidence of the life activity of an animal
that lived in the past. Burrows, tracks, trails, feeding marks, and resting
marks are all examples of trace fossils. It is usually hard to figure
out exactly which kind of animal made a particular trace fossil. Trace
fossils are useful to paleontologists (scientists who study past geologic
time based on fossils), however, because they tell something about the
environment where the animal lived and the animal's behavior.
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