Turned to stone

摘要

Fossils can be amazing in many ways. There are unbelievable creatures like Atopodentatus, a marine reptile with a second row of teeth splitting its skull where its nose ought to be. Or Helicoprion, the shark with a circular saw for slicing up prey. There are the fossils that transformed our view of ancient life, like Archaeopteryx, with its strange mix of reptilian and bird-like features. Then there are fossils with features we never expected to be preserved. Dinosaur skin imprints. Beetles whose iridescent shells still shimmer with rainbow colours. Ancient fish in whose petrified eyes the light-detecting rod and cone cells can be seen under a microscope. Yet other fossils capture our imaginations because they are so mysterious, like the enigmatic embryo-like things from 600 million years ago that don't match anything we know.