Alamosaurus

This herbivore was the only titanosaur that lived in North America. Fossils of this sauropod have been found along the junction between the Aguja and Javelina Formations in West Texas dating to the end of the Cretaceous Era from 84 to 66 million years ago. Then, a prehistoric ocean known as the Western Interior Seaway cut the North American continent in half. This artifact is a fossil fragment of the Alamosaurus sanjuanensis, the only known species of the genus, found in the Javelina Formation of West Texas.

Carcharodontosaurus Tooth

This dinosaur’s name translates to “jagged toothed lizard”. It is one of the second largest theropod dinosaurs known. It inhabited the African continent. The name is inspired by its serrated sharp teeth, which resembled those of the great white shark (Genus Carcharodon). This artifact dates to the Late Cretaceous period (100.5 million years ago to 66 million years ago.)

Coelacanths

It was an ancient group of lobe-finned fish. They are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (which include amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals). These fish have been well represented in both freshwater and marine fossils since the Devonian period. This artifact dates back to the Triassic Period which began approximately 240 million years ago.

Cooksonia

At the end of the Ordovician, strange new life forms had managed to bring themselves out of the ocean and on to solid land for the first time in history. Despite a lack of leaves and roots, these plants were able to colonize prehistoric landforms and completely cover the landscape. Cooksonia was one of the first land plants to refine this evolutionary innovation. This artifact is a fragment of a compressed siltstone matrix containing fossil remains of Cooksonia. It was recovered from the Kielce Fold Zone in the southern Swietokrzyskie (Holy Cross) mountains of Poland. Dating to the juncture of the Ordovician and Silurian periods, this region was at the edge of a shallow sea. It was here, some 445 billion years ago, that life began the irreversible climb onto land that would change the planet.

Daspletosaurus

Its name means “frightful lizard”. This early tyrannosaurid weighed 2.5 metric tons (5,500 lbs.) and measured over 8 m. (25 feet) in length. Like other tyrannosaurids, it had a massive set of jaws and small, two-fingered claws. This artifact is from a leg bone found in Montana’s Two Medicine Formation from the Cretaceous era which occurred 77 million years ago.

Dunkleosteus

A portion of a Dunkleosteus terrelli skull, an extinct fish, lived during the late Devonian, approximately 382 – 358 million years ago. They possessed one of the highest bite forces among any animal. The exact body dimensions remain unknown but estimates suggest that the largest known specimen could have been 4 m. (13 feet) long and weighed around 2.5 metric tons (1.1 tons). Their fossils are identifiable from the remains of their armor; a complex puzzle made of interlocking pieces that protected the animal from other predators. With this armor and bite force, it was a near unstoppable apex predator. This artifact is a fragment of a 358-million-year-old skull recovered from the Famennian strata in Morocco.

Glyptodon

This herbivorous mammal was related to today's armadillos, but were much larger, with some of them growing to the size of a small car. Their shell was made-up of around 1800 rigid osteoderm plates, which locked around them like a suit of natural armor. This protection was so effective that it was often ignored by predators. These animals migrated to North America from South America three million years ago during the Great American Interchange, when the continents were first linked by Panama’s formation. It was there that they first contacted humans which lead to their downfall due to overhunting. This artifact is a section of a 20,000-year-old osteoderm fossil found in the Pleistocene Era deposits of northern Florida.

Hydrothermal Vents

This phenomenon is one possible candidate for an environment that may have spawned the first basic life force. They support bacterial life like proteobacteria that use chemosynthesis, a process where compounds spawned from vents like hydrogen sulfide convert carbon into organic material. This specimen is a geologic fragment from an ancient deep-sea vent from Kidd Creek mine in Ontario, Canada. This location is home to a massive sulfide ore deposit that formed 2.715 billion years ago in the Archean Eon.

Oviraptor

When the prototype (or first) oviraptor fossil was found, it was alongside what was mis-identified as a protoceratops nest. It was thought that this dinosaur was raiding that nest and labeled it “oviraptor” which means “egg thief”. Subsequent discoveries confirmed that the nest was not being preyed upon but rather an oviraptor nest. This artifact comes from the Hell Creek formation of Montana which dates to the end of the Mesozoic Era around 66 million years ago. These dinosaurs ranged in size from that of a modern-day turkey to larger specimens growing up to 8 meters (26 feet) long. It is a member of the Caenagnathidae, a subgroup of Oviraptosaurs that lacked teeth and instead had beaklike jaws.

Permian Era Unidentified Dinosaur Bone

This artifact comes from a large fossil cluster which often holds dozens of small bones. This tiny, fossilized bone from a small tetrapod was found in the Richards Spur Quarry near Lawton, Oklahoma. Many of these fossils come from Captorhinus, a reptile that was common in the Permian deposit and estimated to be 486 million years old. These creatures had hooked snouts with extended front teeth and resembled a modern foot long lizard. They were one of the smallest carnivores of their time.

Woolly Rhinoceros

This herbivorous mammal (Coelodonta antiquitatis) emerged in Eurasia 3.6 million years ago, during the Pleistocene Era. They were comparable in size to the modern white rhino. They could reach up to 3.5 m. (12 ft.) in length and weighed over 2 1/2 m. (6,000 lbs.). Most impressive was the front horn, a massive keratin formation over 1.2 m. (4 ft.) long. They lived until the Quaternary extinction event where a warming climate replaced grasslands with shrubs and trees. This artifact was recovered from the North Sea, which once was a tundra between the British Isle and continental Europe before it flooded 8000 years ago.