Fossil Type Specimens in Parks

Introduction

The thousands of fossil organisms that have been described from national parks have a special significance within the science of paleontology. One of the most famous is the sauropod dinosaur Apatosaurus louisae, collected from Dinosaur National Monument. This fossil is on display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where millions of people have seen it over the years. The bones of Apatosaurus louisae were discovered in 1909 by paleontologist Earl Douglass and were scientifically described in 1915 in a paper in the Annals of the Carnegie Museum by W. J. Holland.

The Apatosaurus louisae from Dinosaur National Monument is the type specimen, or holotype, for that species. It is only one of the approximately 5,000 fossil species and subspecies that have been named from specimens that either were collected (or possibly collected) on lands now managed by the National Park Service and from NPS affiliated areas. More than half of these specimens were named between 1890 and 1940; in many cases prior to an area’s incorporation in the National Park System. But more type specimens are scientifically described each year.

Sometimes for fossils collected a long time ago, precise location information is not available so it is not possible to definitely determine whether the type specimen had been collected from NPS lands.

Given that the significant fossil record of the National Park System, with fossils ranging in age from the last 1.5 billion years of Earth’s history, it is unsurprising that so many name-bearing type specimens have been found in NPS lands.

Type Specimen Nomenclature

Scientists designate a type specimen (a holotype) when a new fossil species is named and described. The type specimen is used as an example for that scientific name.

For example, the type specimen for Tyrannosaurus rex is CM 9380; “CM” is an acronym for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and “9380” is its museum’s catalog number. Anyone who wants to compare a fossil to Tyrannosaurus rex starts by comparing it to CM 9380.

Although holotypes are most often used in the scientific literature, other kinds of type specimens exist. The other kinds of type specimens are usually only used in specific rare situations, and only some of them are the actual name-bearing type specimens. These different kinds of name-bearing type specimens are very important in the science of paleontology.

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Parks with the Most Type Specimens

^{Only four type specimens have been collected from Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, but one is Hudsonaster wardi, an early asteroid (sea star). Sea stars are very rare in the fossil record because they do not preserve well since their bodies typically disarticulate after death. It is currently reposited at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C..}

Type specimens have been designated from lands of 81 national park units, three NPS affiliated units, and the abolished Fossil Cycad National Monument. These parks found throughout the United States, but they are not spread evenly. Most of the NPS fossil types come from parks in Alaska, California, the Colorado Plateau (Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah), Wyoming, and Texas.

The type specimens from national parks are also spread through geologic time. Surprisingly given the iconic Dinosaur National Monument and the charismatic Apatosaurus louisae, there are very few type specimens from Jurassic Period from National Park System lands. Only about 1% of the fossil species named (or possibly named) from NPS lands are from the Jurassic. More than 40% come from the Eocene, thanks to parks such as Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Badlands National Park, Fossil Butte National Monument, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, and Yellowstone National Park.

Other parks with large numbers of type specimens include Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and Grand Canyon National Park. Grand Canyon has holotypes from the Neoproterozoic, the Paleozoic, and the Pleistocene, and Guadalupe Mountains’ are all from the Permian Period.

Invertebrate species make up great majority of NPS fossil type specimens. Almost two-thirds of the fossil species named (or possibly named) from NPS lands are invertebrates. Invertebrates are followed by plants and vertebrates, each making up about 15% of the total. The rest are trace fossils or various kinds of microfossils.

Significant Holotypes From Parks

Big Bend National Park

Many of the best-known type specimens from NPS lands are of vertebrates. Two come from Big Bend National Park, and fitting for a Texas park, they are both for especially large animals. The holotypes for the giant crocodile Deinosuchus riograndensis is in the fossil reptile collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus northropi is at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin. Both are from Cretaceous rocks.

Related Links

• Big Bend—Pterosaurs in Big Bend
• Big Bend—"Super-Croc"

Dinosaur National Monument

The best-known fossil holotype from an NPS area is probably CM 3018, the nearly complete skeleton that is the holotype of the enormous dinosaur Apatosaurus louisae. As a major exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, it is certainly one of the most visible and most often photographed! Its importance goes beyond public recognition though; it is one of the most complete skeletons of a sauropod dinosaur ever found and has been studied for more than a century making it a key fossil specimen for scientific reference.

But Apatosaurus louisae is not the only type specimen from Dinosaur National Monument. The holotypes of species of the other well-known Jurassic dinosaur genera including Allosaurus, Camarasaurus, and Camptosaurus are also from the monument. Some of these species have only been recently described. Allosaurus jimmadseni was scientifically described in 2020, and Camptosaurus medius was described in 2008.

Related Links

• Dinosaur NM—Allosaurus jimmadseni
• Dinosaur NM—Camptosaurus aphanoecetes

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado has by far the most type specimens of any NPS unit. Holotypes of 432 fossil species are based on specimens that definitely came from fossils collected within the monument boundary, and another 1318 species have limited locality information but may be based on material collected from within the park. Most of these type specimens are of insects or plants, and come from the famous Eocene-age Florissant lake beds.

Lake Florissant experienced blooms of microscopic diatoms after silica-rich volcanic ash was washed into it. After the diatoms died, they fell to the lake bottom, helping protect insects, leaves, and other organic material from decay and sealing the thin paper shale layers containing the fossil impressions and compressions. Alternating shale and diatom layers record many such cycles of sedimentation and preservation in Lake Florissant and leading to the many holotypes from the Florissant Formation.

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park contains a wide variety of holotypes, including of microfossils, marine invertebrates, insects, Pleistocene vertebrates, and ichnofossils, which are mostly of fossil tracks, with a total of 182 type specimens found (or possibly found) in the park. Grand Canyon contains a particularly significant collection of type specimens of trace fossils (ichnofossils), notably of fossil tracks. A large number of important fossil trackways are in the Hermit Formation (Permian) and Coconino Sandstone (Permian). Holotypes from Grand Canyon include 43 inchnofossils, 92 invertebrates (mostly of Paleozoic marine invertebrates), plus 24 plants from the Hermit Formation.

Related Links

• NPS—Grand Canyon Collections, Paleontology—Coiled Nautiloid

• NPS—Grand Canyon Collections, Paleontology—Seed Fern Fossil

• NPS—Grand Canyon Collections, Paleontology—Dragonfly Wing Fossil

Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Guadalupe Mountains National Park has great scientific importance in the fields of stratigraphy and paleontology. The park contains Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points, which are reference points for the International Chronostratigraphic Chart, for the Guadalupian Series of the Permian System.

The park contains predominantly limestones that were formed in the Capitan Reef of the Delaware Basin in west Texas. A wide variety of marine invertebrates formed and inhabited this reef, making fossils abundant in the park. There has been 252 holotypes recorded from park lands (or potentially from park lands), including many brachiopods which were particularly abundant in the Permian, including many with unusual morphologies.

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

John Day Fossil Beds National Monument contains a world-class record of Cenozoic plants and animals that spans a time period of 40 million years. It is also home to many holotypes important to science, with 328 having been described from fossils collected (or potentially collected) on lands within the park boundaries.

Most of the holotypes from the park come from two formations, each containing holotypes from different types of fossils. The Eocene Clarno Formation has a particularly important fossil record of plants, and the Oligocene John Day Formation has an especially important vertebrate fossil record.

Of the 196 plant holotypes from John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, 176 are in the Clarno Formation. Most of these are from the Clarno Nut Beds which preserves a record of a particularly diverse semitropical forest, largely of flowering plants (angiosperms). Strikingly, the Clarno Nut Beds contains fossils of seeds, fruits and nuts, parts of plants that are rare fossilized.

Of the 117 vertebrate type specimens from the monument, 104 are from the John Day Formation. These type specimens include species of Stylemys (dryland tortoises), Nimravus (false saber-toothed cats), Agriochoerus (bizarre-clawed oreodont), and Miohippus (small three-toed horse).

Petrified Forest National Park

Petrified Forest National Park is justifiably famous for its Triassic fossil plants, but many species of fossil vertebrates have been named from specimens found in the park’s exposures of the Chinle Formation. In the mid-1980s, a partial skeleton of a small dinosaur, nicknamed “Gertie,” became famous for its great age as it was then considered to be the earliest known dinosaur. In 1995, “Gertie” was scientifically described as Chindesaurus bryansmalli.

Related Links

• Petrified Forest—Ornithodiran archosaurs

Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail

ANSP 5516 is one of the most unusual holotypes associated with an NPS unit. This fossil is kept at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is not a large specimen, unusually well-preserved, or complete. Instead, it is the only fossil to have been collected on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. ANSP 5516 is a small jaw piece collected by Patrick Gass, a sergeant on the expedition, on August 6, 1804 from a “cavern” near Soldier River in what is now western Harrison County, Iowa. First thought to have come from a marine reptile, ANSP 5516 is the type specimen for the large Cretaceous fish Saurocephalus lanciformis, named in 1824. It is unlikely that the actual discovery site is directly on the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, but it is a part of the story that the national historic trail was established to recognize.

Related Links

• Lewis & Clark NHT—Fossils of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Yellowstone National Park

Most of the 179 type specimens from Yellowstone National Park are either of Paleozoic invertebrates (49) or Eocene plants (114). Paleozoic marine sedimentary rocks containing invertebrate fossils are exposed near the western park boundary.

Most of the plant fossils are in the same lahar (volcanic mudflows) that created one of the richest deposits of petrified trees in the world in the northern part of Yellowstone. Fossils of plants are often preserved in lahars because they can bury entire forests, and the volcanic ash in them provides a ready source of silica that aids in fossilization. Species of magnolia, pine trees and oaks have been described from fossils collected in Yellowstone.

Continuing Discoveries

The science of paleontology is an ongoing process, so new type specimens and fossil species are added to the NPS list every year. Some are from fossils newly discovered and collected from the field. Others arise from going back and restudying fossils found in past years.

An example of this continuing science occurred in January 2024 with the publication of a paper reporting the first known occurrence of fossil grasshopper eggs and an egg pod from John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The fossils were collected between 1996 and 2021 from the Oligocene John Day Formation.

Two type specimens were designated for these fossils. One for the egg pod (Subterroothecichnus radialis), and another for the eggs (Curvellipsoentomoolithus laddi).

These new fossils are particularly significant because few insect eggs have been described from the fossil record.

Related Links

• John Day Fossil Beds—Fossil Grasshopper Nest Found

• Parks Stewardship Forum—Microtomography of an enigmatic fossil egg clutch from the Oligocene John Day Formation, Oregon, USA, reveals an exquisitely preserved 29-million-year-old fossil grasshopper ootheca

Stories from Around the NPS

Featured Parks

• Dinosaur National Monument (DINO), Colorado and Utah—[DINO Geodiversity Atlas] [DINO Park Home] [DINO npshistory.com]

• Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (FLFO), Colorado—[FLFO Geodiversity Atlas] [FLFO Park Home] [FLFO npshistory.com]

• Grand Canyon National Park (GRCA), Arizona—[GRCA Geodiversity Atlas] [GRCA Park Home] [GRCA npshistory.com]

• Guadalupe Mountains National Park (GUMO), Texas—[GUMO Geodiversity Atlas] [GUMO Park Home] [GUMO npshistory.com]

• Mammoth Cave National Park (MACA), Kentucky—[MACA Geodiversity Atlas] [MACA Park Home] [MACA npshistory.com]

• Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO), Arizona—[PEFO Geodiversity Atlas] [PEFO Park Home] [PEFO npshistory.com]

Related Links

• NPS Geoheritage—Sceintific Value

Leave No Trace—Protect Holotypes for Science

Many paleontological sites are vulnerable to damage from careless visitation and over-use. Be sure to practice Leave No Trace princples whenever you are in the outdoors. Of particular importance at fossil geoheritage sites is to:

• Travel and camp on durable surfaces, and

• Leave what you find.

If you see signs of vandalism or someone acting inappropriately during your visit to a park site, please contact a ranger at the park or make a report through NPS Investigative Services.

References

• Santucci, V.L., J.S. Tweet, and T. Connors. 2018. The Paleontology Synthesis Project and Establishing a Framework for Managing National Park Service Paleontological Resource Archives and Data. in Lucas, S.G. and Sullivan, R.M., (eds.), Fossil Record 6. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 79: 589-601. https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2257152

• Tweet JS and Santucci VL. 2020. From microfossils to megafauna: an overview of the taxonomic diversity of National Park Service fossils. Pages 437-457. In Lucas SG and Others (ed). Fossil Record 7. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Albuquerque, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin. Bulletin 82. https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2283752

• Tweet, J.S., V.L. Santucci, and H.G. McDonald. 2016. Name-Bearing Fossil Type Specimens and Species Named from National Park Service Areas.in Sullivan, R.M. and Lucas, S.G., eds., 2016, Fossil Record 5. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 74, p. 277-288. https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2234901

Learn More

• Fantastic Camarasauruses (from Dinosaur National Monument) and Where to Find Them

• Park Traveler—Discovering Mammoth Cave’s Oceanic Past

• Petrified Forest—New Triassic amphibian is the oldest (and funkiest) of its kind in the world