Fossil Fishes
The fossil fish collection of The Field Museum is one of the two largest in North America. It contains over 18,000 catalogued specimens from localities all over the world ranging in age from Ordovician to Pleistocene in age.
Highlights
- Largest collection of fossil fishes from the Green River Formation including 2400 catalogued specimens
- Over 1600 fossil fishes from the Mazon Creek Biota, including important agnaths, acanthodians, sarcopterygians, and Palaeoniscoids
- Over 4400 fossil fishes from the Pennsylvanian black shales of Illinois and Indiana
- 1700 arthrodires from North America, Europe and Australia
- 1600 sarcopterygians from North America, South America and Europe
- Small but important collection from the Mississippian of Iowa
- Almost 700 catalogued specimens from the Late Cretaceous of Lebanon
Policies
Some items in the Field Museum collections are available to loan for exhibition, research, or education in support of our mission: fighting climate change, preserving biodiversity, celebrating cultures, and championing science. |
Related Collections
History
Like all the fossil collections at Field Museum, the Fossil Fish Collection started when we bought the Wards Natural Science Establishment exhibit at the 1894 Columbian Exposition. It also grew in 1947 when we received specimens from the transfer of the University of Chicago’s Walker Museum collection. The collection was expanded through collecting expeditions led by Robert Denison in the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, Rainier Zangerl from the 1950s to the 1970s, and later by Lance Grande from the mid-1980s onward. Denison worked in Paleozoic rocks with a primary focus on the Devonian. He worked in the Western US, Canada, and in Europe. Rainier Zangerl focused on fishes from the Pennsylvanian black shales of Illinois and Indiana. Lance Grande’s fieldwork has been primarily in the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, but he's also worked in the Cretaceous of Mexico. Jack Wittry has contributed by donating Mazon Creek fishes from the collector community. Arjan Mann is actively working to build on this success adding to the Mazon Creek fish fauna.
Search the Fossil Vertebrates Data
Search the Fossil Fishes records and discover data and images.
