I’ve heard that 99% of animals won’t fossilize and the ones that do are rare to even find, if that’s the case then how come we have so many examples of specific species even across the world from eachother when surely the fossil record should just be a jumbled mess of at least only quasi related species, is it that some species are lumped together due to similarities or what?
In: Biology
The fossil record is a mess. But the number of fossils we have of a particular animal depend on how abundant that animal was and whether its habit was near clay soil, tar, or water/ocean. An animal that dies and quickly gets covered in clay will have a better probability of fossilizing. Ocean critters like sea shells are also abundant. Getting buried and fossilized in the ocean is easy.
Some animals we only have one of their species on record.
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