A belemnite guard, one long pointed coneThe guard is the hard inner part of a squid-like animal and its most common remain. A slim cone with a point.
A brachiopod, two ribbed shells hinged at the backA rounded fan of ribs. Its two shells are top and bottom, hinged at the back, not left and right like a clam's.
A fossil sand dollar, a flat disc of platesA flat disc with a flower of five petals in the middle. Its plates are arranged in a five-fold pattern.
A fossil shark tooth, sharp point on a wide rootA pointed triangle on a wider root. Sharks shed and replace their teeth all their lives.
A horn coral, wrinkled and curvedA cone bent like a horn, wrinkled all around. Rugose corals are extinct; those that lived alone are called horn corals.
A megalodon tooth, drawn largeThe shark-tooth triangle, drawn large. Megalodon means big tooth; the shark lived about 23 to 3.6 million years ago.
A Petoskey stone, a pebble of fossil coralA smooth pebble covered in small many-sided cells. The coral is Hexagonaria; ice rounded the stones.
Show all 48 fossils (41 more)
Shells and sea creatures, continued
A sea lily with its stalk, cup and feathery armsA crinoid: an animal related to starfish, not a plant. A long stalk, a small cup and arms that branch like feathers.
A sea scorpion with its two swimming paddlesA eurypterid: a broad head, a segmented body narrowing to a tail, two wide paddles. The largest reached 2.5 meters.
A trilobite from above, in three lobesAn oval with a head shield and cross ribs. Named for its three lengthwise lobes: one in the middle, one each side.
An ammonite, one flat spiral of shellA coil that widens as it turns, with short ribs across it. Ammonites were relatives of squid and octopus, now extinct.
Stromatolite layers in a cut rockFine wavy layers stacked into domes. They were built up by mats of microorganisms; some are about 3.4 billion years old.
Plants and insects 12
A Calamites stem, ribbed and jointed like bambooA column with upright ribs and a ring at each joint. A tree-sized relative of today's horsetails.
A fern frond pressed flat in shaleA middle stem with small leaflets in pairs. Plants are very often kept as compression fossils, flattened in the rock.
A ginkgo leaf fossil on a slab of shaleA fan on a slim stalk with fine lines spreading from it. Ginkgo is the last living genus of an order from the Permian.
A Glossopteris leaf from the PermianA long leaf with a rounded tip. The name means tongue fern, though it was a seed plant and not a fern.
A leaf imprint in mudstone, veins and allAn oval outline, a midrib and side veins. A stone imprint of a living thing counts as a fossil too.
A slab crowded with coal-swamp plantsOverlap a fern frond, a ribbed stem and a patch of diamond bark on one slab. Calamites grew in the coal swamps.
A slab of petrified wood, grain showingWood turned to stone as minerals replaced it; some of its structure can remain. A rough round with lines of grain.
An insect caught in a piece of amberA rounded golden lump with a small insect inside. Amber is fossil tree resin and sometimes holds animals and plants.
Annularia, starry whorls of leaves on a stemEight to thirteen narrow leaves in a ring, like spokes. Annularia is the name given to the leaves of Calamites.
Meganeura, a giant dragonfly-like insectFour long narrow wings and a stick body. One wing reached 32 centimeters; it lived about 300 million years ago.
Scale-tree bark in a pattern of diamondsRow on row of diamond shapes. Lepidodendron was as big as a tree, and its bark was covered in diamond-shaped leaf bases.
Scale-tree roots spreading through rockBranches spreading flat, covered with many small rootlets. Lepidodendron grew from this underground system.
Bones, teeth and skeletons 12
A fish skeleton whole in its slabA spine, fine ribs both sides, a forked tail. Knightia, a relative of herrings, is the state fossil of Wyoming.
A Glyptodon shell, a dome of bony piecesA dome covered in hundreds of small joined plates. Glyptodon was a huge extinct armadillo of South America.
A plesiosaur skeleton with four flippersA broad flat body, a short tail and four long flippers that moved like wings under water.
A Pterodactylus with its long wing fingerA small body and a long beak; each wing hangs from one very long fourth finger. No pterosaur was named earlier.
A Smilodon skull, long canines showingA short skull with two very long upper canine teeth. Called the saber-toothed tiger, but not close kin to tigers.
A Triceratops skull lying in sandstoneTwo long brow horns, a short nose horn and a wide frill behind. The name means three-horned face.
A Tyrannosaurus skull, side viewA massive skull with big openings and a row of teeth. In life a long, heavy tail balanced it.
An ichthyosaur skeleton in a slabA sea reptile that came to look like a dolphin. A long snout, a big eye ring, a spine curving to the tail.
An Irish elk skull with wide antlersA deer skull under two broad antlers. One of the largest deer ever; many have been found in Irish bogs.
Archaeopteryx with feather marks around its bonesA bird-like dinosaur; the name means ancient wing. Fine bones with the dents of feathers on the wings and tail.
One Stegosaurus back plateA kite shape standing on its point. Stegosaurus had upright kite-shaped plates along its back and spikes on its tail.
Tiktaalik, wide head and four sturdy finsA fish shape with a wide head and four sturdy fins. About 375 million years old, with features of four-legged animals.
Tracks, eggs and the dig 12
A chart joining two rock columns by their fossilsTwo columns of layers with lines joining the same fossils. Matching layers this way is called biostratigraphy.
A coprolite, fossil dungA lumpy sausage shape. A coprolite is a trace fossil: it shows what an animal ate, not what it looked like.
A fossil half cleared from shaleThe fossil on one side, rough shale on the other, a brush beside it. Preparators take the rock off layer by layer.
A geologist's hammer laid beside an ammoniteA long handle; the head is square on one side and a chisel or a pick on the other. Coil the shell beside it.
A mounted Diplodocus skeleton, neck to tailA small skull, a long neck, a long tail, four pillar legs. Diplodocus was first found in 1877.
A pile of gastroliths, stomach stonesRounded pebbles, some polished. Some animals swallowed stones that helped to grind food in the gizzard.
A rock split along its layers with hammer and chiselTwo halves of a slab and a fossil on the fresh face. Rock is laid down in layers, and collectors split them apart.
A trackway of fossil footprints across a slabA line of prints, left then right. A trackway is a run of tracks left by one animal, and it shows how the animal walked.
Five bands of rock, a different fossil in eachStack five bands, one fossil to a band. In layers that have not been disturbed, the oldest is at the bottom.
Footprints in drying mud at a lake shorePrints pressed into cracked mud. A footprint lasts only in special conditions, such as a shore dried to firm mud.
Fossil burrows, tubes running through rockTubes and tunnels in a block. Burrow fossils are the homes or paths animals dug, kept in the rock.
Three dinosaur eggs side by sideThree ovals with cracked shells. The first dinosaur eggs known to science were found in 1859.
How this list was compiled: Original list written for Draw This Next on 2026-10-02: 48 fossils to draw as they are found in rock, in four kinds (shells and sea creatures; plants and insects; bones, teeth and skeletons; tracks, eggs and the dig), twelve of each, each marked easy, medium or hard. The drawing hints are our own. The name of each fossil and the fact in its hint were read on 2026-10-02 in the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org; text free to reuse under CC BY-SA 4.0), in the articles Fossil, Ammonoidea, Trilobite, Crinoid, Shark tooth, Megalodon, Belemnitida, Brachiopod, Sand dollar, Rugosa, Petoskey stone, Eurypterid, Stromatolite, Compression fossil, Amber, Petrified wood, Ginkgo, Lepidodendron, Calamites, Annularia, Glossopteris, Meganeura, Knightia, Tiktaalik, Smilodon, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Ichthyosauria, Plesiosaur, Pterodactylus, Archaeopteryx, Stegosaurus, Glyptodon, Irish elk, Fossil track, Dinosaur egg, Coprolite, Gastrolith, Burrow fossil, Law of superposition, Geologist's hammer, Fossil collecting, Fossil preparation, Biostratigraphy and Diplodocus. Where an article names the age of a fossil, the age is kept with the item. A fact the articles did not confirm was left out. Licence: own work
How it works
Forty-eight fossils to draw as they are found in rock: shells and sea creatures, plants and insects, bones, tracks, eggs and the dig. Each hint gives the shapes and one checked fact. The page opens on the 20 easy ones.
Read the full guide
Spirals, ovals and fans
The easy fossils are single shapes with a pattern. An ammonite is one flat spiral with ribs across it, a trilobite is an oval in three lengthwise lobes, a fern frond is a stem with leaflets in pairs. Draw the outline, then repeat one small mark all over it.
From the sea floor to the dig
Kind, under More filters, sorts the list four ways: shells and sea creatures, plants and insects, bones and skeletons, and tracks, eggs and the dig, which holds the hammer, the split rock and the chart of layers too. Choose Any level under the button for all 48.
Questions and answers
What is the easiest fossil to draw?
An ammonite: one flat spiral that widens as it turns, with short ribs across it. A fossil shark tooth, a trilobite seen from above and a fern frond pressed flat in shale are close behind. Easy holds 20.
What does a trilobite look like?
From above, an oval with a head shield at one end and many cross ribs. It is named for its three lengthwise lobes, one down the middle and one on each side. Trilobites lived in the sea and are extinct.
What is a trace fossil?
A record of what a living thing did, not of its body: a footprint, a trackway, a burrow, a coprolite. A shell, a bone or a leaf is a body fossil. The list has both.
Why are the oldest fossils at the bottom?
Rock is laid down in layers, one on top of another, so in layers that have not been disturbed the oldest lie lowest. Five bands of rock, a different fossil in each, is a drawing of that rule.