Trace fossil

Okay kiddo, have you ever gone to the beach and built sandcastles? Remember how you made shapes in the sand with your hands and toys? Well, animals did something similar a long time ago, but instead of sand, they made shapes in mud, sand, or rock-covered ground. These shapes that they left behind are called trace fossils.

Trace fossils are evidence that an animal lived long ago, even though its actual body may be gone. An example of a trace fossil is a dinosaur footprint. Dinosaurs walked on soft ground that later hardened into rock, preserving their footprints. So, when scientists find dinosaur footprints, they know that a dinosaur was there. Sometimes scientists also find trace fossils like burrows, which are tunnels that animals make in soil or sediment, or even coprolites, which are animal poop that have hardened into rock over time.

Trace fossils can help scientists understand what animals looked like, how they moved, and where they lived. So even though we can't see the actual animal anymore, we can learn a lot from the shapes they made in the ground. Cool, huh?