Unique animal fossil patterns in the world

Unlike giant dinosaur skeletons, some fossils have become the focus of archaeologists' attention because of their uniqueness.

5 unique animal fossils

1. Ancient sperm

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The earthworm sperm is 50 million years old.Photo: Archeology Department, Swedish Natural History Museum.

The 50-million-year-old sperm of an earthworm in the Antarctic Peninsula is the oldest animal sperm fossil ever found. This worm breeds by injecting eggs and sperm into protective cocoons. It is the hard shell that keeps the cocoon intact to this day.

2. Century Silua shrimp

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Tiny shrimp fossils found on the border between England and Wales.(Photo: The Sun.)

Discovered in water ditches near the border between England and Wales in the early 2000s, this tiny shrimp fossil remains intact with all soft tissue. In the Silua period (443 - 419 million years ago), the Welsh border is located on a tropical sea. Marine animals are often covered, buried and petrified by volcanic ash. Tiny shrimp fossils cannot be observed through a microscope, so scientists have restored it with 3D imaging techniques.

3. Dinosaur feces

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Fossil dinosaur feces in North Carolina, USA.(Photo: Poozeum.)

Stone differentiation, also known as fecal gravel, are "vestigial fossils" of great archaeological value. They can reveal to scientists exactly what an extinct creature has ever eaten. Fecal stones are just a form of bromalite, fossils from all secretions of organisms, often called "stinking rocks."

4. Yorkshire rhino

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Kirkdale cave jaws in England.(Photo: Yorkshire Museum.)

A road mining worker found many bones in Kirkdale Cave in England in 1821. Professor William Buckland of Oxford University realized this was the skeleton of a large herbivore like rhino. . The skeleton has signs of bites and fossils found on the cave floor very similar to hyena. Buckland affirmed that Kirkdale Cave was the hall of the hyena. Nearly 200 years later, we know that large animals in Africa used to roam around Yorkshire, England, about 125,000 years ago during the warm inter-ice years.

5. Monster Tully

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Monster fossil Tully.(Photo: Ghedoghedo.)

The fossil of this creature was first discovered in a coal mine in the 19th century. Its name is taken by Francis Tully , who found the fossil specimen. Scientists have not yet determined which species it belongs to. Nearly 10cm long, the Tully monster has a long muzzle with pointed teeth, two eyes on the body, a split body and tail fin. This may be a predator and the surrounding rock shows that it lives in the shallow waters of the tropical sea.