Fossils Found in Louisiana

Plant Fossils

• Petrified palm wood is the state fossil of Louisiana. These fossils formed 24 to 30 million years ago and come in a variety of colors. Because of their beauty, palm wood fossils are often used in jewelry. Other plant fossils in Louisiana include fossils that developed from buried forests and tree molds.

Vertebrate Fossils

• The largest vertebrate fossils in Louisiana come from the bones of Basilosaurus, a primitive whale that was 45 to 70 feet long. When the Basilosaurus lived in Louisiana 35 to 40 million years ago, Louisiana was almost completely covered by the Gulf of Mexico. The mastodon, a shaggy, elephant-like animal that was six ten feet high at the shoulder and about 15 feet long, is another common vertebrate fossil in Louisiana. The oldest vertebrate fossil in Louisiana is a single shark's tooth from the species Squalicorax pristodontus that appears to be approximately 66.4 to 74.5 million years old.

Invertebrate Fossils

• Invertebrate fossils are the oldest fossils found in Louisiana. These include fossils of land snails, freshwater snails and freshwater clams. Brachiopods are another common invertebrate fossil. Brachiopods lived on the bottom of warm seas between 570 and 245 million years ago. Bryozoans, often called moss animals, and cephalopods, squid-like marine mollusks, lived at the same time as Brachiopods and left many fossilized remains.