PaleoDex → Features → Fossil-DEX
Fossil-DEX
74,000+ real prehistoric genera. Every one sourced.
The Fossil-DEX is a browsable, searchable catalogue of every genus in PaleoDex — over 74,000 entries, each with a sourced field dossier. It's a reference, not an encyclopedia: the focus is accurate scientific classification, real photos, and field data from open scientific databases.
What's in a dossier
Each genus entry in the Fossil-DEX contains the following, pulled from open scientific sources:
- Real photo or illustration from Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons, with graceful fallback to a PhyloPic silhouette if no photo exists.
- Scientific classification — Kingdom through Genus — from the Open Tree of Life, with a citable link to the live taxonomy.
- Age and period — first and last appearance in the fossil record, expressed in geological period and million years.
- Formation and locality — where the fossil was found and in which rock formation.
- Environment and diet — marine, terrestrial, freshwater; carnivore, herbivore, etc.
- Rarity tier — based on how frequently the genus appears in the occurrence record.
- Occurrence count — how many fossil occurrences are documented in the Paleobiology Database.
- Sourced write-up — 22,000+ genera have a written field profile drawn from Wikipedia.
Coverage
The catalogue spans 7 taxonomic groups and all 12 geological periods from the Cambrian to the Quaternary.
- Groups: dinosaurs, birds (avian lineage), prehistoric mammals, marine life, reptiles & amphibians, ancient flora, invertebrates.
- Periods: Cambrian → Ordovician → Silurian → Devonian → Carboniferous → Permian → Triassic → Jurassic → Cretaceous → Paleogene → Neogene → Quaternary.
- Photos: 16,000+ genera have real photographs.
- Quick-facts: 12,507 genera have curated at-a-glance data.
Search
The Fossil-DEX has a fuzzy search that tolerates typos and variant spellings. Searching 'ankilosaurus' returns Ankylosaurus. The catalogue leads with the most recognized, best-documented genera and extends through the full scientific record.
My Museum
The Museum is where your collected specimens live — the genera you've excavated in FossilRun, ranked by rarity and condition. It's separate from the Fossil-DEX: the DEX is the full catalogue of everything that exists in the app; the Museum is your personal collection of what you've dug up.