Biodiversity
The diversity and abundance of invertebrate fossils is truly amazing. Scientists have divided the invertebrates into 33 phyla of which 25 have a fossil record, and of these 25 phyla 15 are represented in the Field Museum’s collections. Approximate representation by major groups in the collection is:
- Porifera 5%
- Cnidaria 11%
- Bryozoa 5%
- Brachiopoda 17%
- Mollusca 23%
- Arthropoda 9%
- Echinodermata 10%
- Faunal Associations 12%
- All others 8% (This includes: Nemertea, Nematoda, Priapulida, Echiura, Annelida, Onychophora, Chaetognatha, and Hemichordata).
In addition, significant components of the collection include: Pennsylvanian fossils from the Mazon Creek area Devonian fossils from the Falls of the Ohio area Silurian reef fossils from the Chicago area Paleozoic echinoderms Ordovician through Devonian corals, brachiopods and trilobites
Geography
The fossil invertebrate collection houses specimens from every continent. The collection’s focus however is material from the Paleozoic of the North American mid-continent with large holdings from the Illinois, Michigan, Iowa and Appalachian Basin.
Geologic Time
The collection has fossils ranging in age from over 550 million years to the present. The collection spans all the geological periods from the Cambrian through Quaternary with a focus on Ordovician through Pennsylvanian fossils
