Eli5 why do we find so many dinosaur skeletons but so few skeletons of our own ancestors like Lucy?

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An actual 6 year-old asked me the question today. I was at a loss.

**Edit**: a lot of interesting answers, food for thought, and ideas on how to explain it to a child. Many thanks to the community!

If I summarize:

* Dinosaurs lived for a very (very) long time, all over the earth, and there were countless different species of them.
* There were few of our ancestors, from just a few species, and most of their existence was confined to limited geographical areas.
* The conditions for a fossil to form are extremely rare, and they may have been even rarer for our ancestors than they were for dinosaurs.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

1. A Fossil only form under very special circumstances
2. Dinosaurs were around for about 200 million years and they lived all over the Earth, thus giving relatively many opportunities for fossils to form.
3. Lucys species were around for a very limited period of time and geographically located to a small area, thus making far it far less likely for the special circumstances to happen for fossils to form.

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