Paleontology in Missouri facts for kids
Paleontology in Missouri is all about finding and studying fossils in the U.S. state of Missouri. Paleontology is the science of learning about ancient life from these preserved remains. Missouri has a long history, geologically speaking, with rocks from almost every time period, except for the Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic. You'll find lots of brachiopods here, which are like shelled creatures.
Long, long ago, during the early Paleozoic Era, a warm, shallow sea covered Missouri. This sea was home to amazing creatures like Archimedes (a corkscrew-shaped animal), brachiopods, shelled cephalopods (like squids with shells), conodonts (tiny eel-like animals), corals, crinoids (sea lilies), armored fish, and trilobites (ancient sea bugs). Later, during the Carboniferous Period, thick forests grew on land. Early four-legged animals, called tetrapods, left their footprints behind. By the end of this period, the sea had left Missouri.
The Permian, Triassic, and Jurassic periods are missing from Missouri's rock record. This means we don't have many rocks or fossils from those times. However, during the Cretaceous Period, southeastern Missouri was again covered by seawater. On land, dinosaurs roamed the state! Missouri stayed partly covered by sea into the early Cenozoic Era, while many different kinds of trees grew on land.
During the Ice Age, huge sheets of ice called glaciers covered the northern part of Missouri. The southern half was home to big animals like camels, mammoths, and mastodons. Missouri's mastodons are some of the most famous Ice Age mammals found here.
Missouri even has its own state fossil and state dinosaur! The Pennsylvanian sea lily, Delocrinus missouriensis, is the state fossil. And Hypsibema missouriensis is the state dinosaur.
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Ancient Life in Missouri
Even in Missouri's oldest rocks, from the Pre-Cambrian time, we can find fossils. These include stromatolites, which are layered structures made by tiny living things called monerans.
Life in Ancient Seas
Missouri was once covered by a shallow sea. During the Cambrian Period, tiny algae left behind spores, and linguloid brachiopods lived here. Trilobites were also around but were not as common.
The Ordovician Period brought a wider variety of life to Missouri. You could find many branching bryozoans (tiny colonial animals), different types of tabulate corals and tetracorals, lots of crinoids, graptolites (tiny colonial animals), many pelecypods (like clams), nautiloids (shelled creatures, some straight, some coiled), Receptaculites (a strange sponge-like fossil), sponges (which left behind tiny spicules), and trilobites. Armored fish were also swimming in Ordovician Missouri.
Later, during the Silurian Period, Missouri was home to many lacy bryozoans, conodonts, tabulate corals, tetracorals, lots of crinoids, and trilobites. Armored fish continued to live in Missouri's waters during this time.
Moving into the Devonian Period, there were a few ammonoids (coiled-shell creatures), conodonts, tabulate corals, tetracorals, many crinoids, a good number of nautiloids, many pelecypods, many stromatoporoids (another type of sponge), and trilobites. Armored fish were still part of Missouri's animal life. Stromatoporoids often lived very close to corals. On land, plants that produced spores left fossils in the northeastern part of the state.
During the Mississippian Period, Missouri had many ammonoids, Archimedes screws and Evactinopora bryozoans, lots of blastoids (another type of sea lily), many lacy bryozoans, tabulate corals, tetracorals, tiny foraminferans, a fair number of nautiloids, many pelecypods, many trilobites, and lots of worms. The Burlington Formation in Mississippian Missouri is famous for its crinoid fossils. Worms left behind trace fossils like their burrows and tubes.
Life on Ancient Land
In the Pennsylvanian Period, Missouri's seas had many ammonoids, some Archimedes screws, brachiopods, many branching and lacy bryozoans, conodonts, tabulate corals, tetracorals, many crinoids, many fusulinids (tiny single-celled creatures), nautiloids, many pelecypods, and many trilobites. Most nautiloids had coiled shells, but some were straight. Their fossils are most common in west-central Missouri. Armored fish also lived in the Pennsylvanian seas.
On land, the Pennsylvanian plant life included ferns, reeds, rushes, and scale trees. These rich forests left behind many plant fossils, from tiny ones to large logs. Some of the state's early four-legged animals left their footprints near Kansas City. The sea covering Missouri slowly filled up with sand and mud from mountains to the east. By the end of the Carboniferous Period, Missouri was no longer covered by the sea.
Sedimentation started again during the Cretaceous Period. Parts of Missouri were covered by the Western Interior Seaway, a large inland sea. This seawater came from the Gulf of Mexico. The southeastern part of the state, where Cretaceous sediments were laid down, became part of a region called the Mississippi Embayment. On land, early flowering plants were blooming. The fossil of a duck-billed dinosaur called Parrosaurus has been found in Bollinger County. In fact, Parrosaurus fossils are some of the only dinosaur remains found in Missouri.
The Mississippi Embayment still covered part of Missouri during the early Cenozoic Era. The plants from this time suggest a moderate climate. During the Eocene epoch of the Cenozoic, plants like hickory, linden, sycamore, and walnut left behind fossils in southeastern Missouri, especially in Stoddard and Scott County.
During the Pleistocene epoch, also known as the Ice Age, glaciers moved south into Missouri, covering the area north of the Missouri River. At this time, mastodons were very common across Missouri. Their remains have been found in almost every county! Mammoths were also present, but fewer of their fossils have been found. Other Ice Age mammals in Missouri included armadillos, bison, bears, camels, deer, horses, musk oxen, peccaries (pig-like animals), porcupines, probable raccoons, sloths, and tapirs. A sinkhole near Enon in Montieau County even preserved non-mammal fossils like frog and turtle bones.
History of Fossil Discoveries
Scientific Research
Finding mammal fossils in Missouri is generally rare, but the state has had some amazing discoveries! In the early 1800s, settlers found large fossil bones in the Big Bone River area. In the 1820s, scientists collected vertebrate fossils from a cave under St. Louis.
Later, in 1838, Albert Koch from The St. Louis Museum found fossils east of the Osage River. These were later identified as belonging to a giant ground sloth called Mylodon. The next year, in 1839, Koch found more bones and teeth near the Big Bone River. Koch then put together a fossil skeleton, adding extra bones to create a "creature" he called the "Missourium". This "creature" became part of a traveling exhibit shown in cities like Dublin, London, and Philadelphia.
In 1941, workers tunneling in southeastern Moniteau County found a deposit of Pleistocene fossils near Enon. These remains included bones from horses, tapirs, a sloth, and two almost complete turtle shells. In 1945, Dr. M. G. Mehl from the University of Missouri and his students discovered peccary fossils in the same cave where fossils were found in 1820. In 1951, over two hundred bones and teeth were dug up from a swampy area on a farm near Vienna.
From 1956 to 1957, many different mammal fossils were found in a crack in the ground in Ralls County, about 4 miles north of Perry. These bones were from bears, deer, mice, and a type of eastern wood rat not found in that area today.
More recently, in 1989, the Pennsylvanian sea lily, Delocrinus missouriensis, was named Missouri's state fossil. In 2004, Hypsibema missouriensis was named the state dinosaur. This dinosaur fossil was found in clay beds in Bollinger County, at a place called the Chronister Vertebrate site. This site is the only place in Missouri where dinosaur fossils have been found.
People Who Studied Fossils
- Chester A. Arnold was born in Leeton on June 25, 1901.
- Michael S. Engel was born in Creve Coeur on September 24, 1971.
Natural History Museums
If you want to see fossils and learn more, check out these places:
- Bollinger County Museum of Natural History, Marble Hill (This museum is currently closed.)
- Kansas City Museum, Kansas City
- Maramec Museum at Maramec Spring Park, St. James
- Missouri Institute of Natural Science, Springfield
- Saint Louis Science Center, St. Louis
- Ste. Genevieve Museum Learning Center, Ste. Genevieve
- Washington University, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Forest Park Rd. and Hoyt Ave.
Clubs and Associations
You can also join groups that love fossils!
- Eastern Missouri Society for Paleontology
Images for kids
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A model of Mylodon, a giant ground sloth.
