Talk:List of U.S. state fossils

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NC/SC[edit]

North Carolina and South Carolina now have state fossils. Can this page get updated? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.159.210.82 (talk) 22:01, 16 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

List of U.S. state fossils[edit]

California - Saber-Toothed Tiger - Smilodon californicus
Maine - Pertica quadrifaria
Montana - Maiasaura peeblesorum
New Jersey - Hadrosauras foulki

Rather than delete this partial list, I moved it here for discussion. The External link covers this list completely. Why don't we employ our energies in improving the Wikipedia entries for state fossils first? When we have entries for all the state fossils, then we might create a list of them. Wetman 15:14, 15 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Removed "a precursor to the earliest fishes". Eurypterids are not vertebrates. Dlloyd 08:02, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Jaw drops[edit]

You don't find it even a tiny tiny bit odd that US States seem to think it a good idea to have a State Fossil? What about a State Bacterium? A State constellation? Humans are such odd things. --Tagishsimon

NPOV! NPOV! Perfect deadpan is the rule at Wikipedia. Much funnier that way too... Wetman 01:13, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
There actually are "state stars" now. —Ayuskoto (talk) 07:47, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Having a State Fossil promotes tourism and visits from amateur paleontologists. Don't knock it. Take a gander at the bizarre Tully Monster, Illinois' State Fossil. Speciate 02:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Formatting[edit]

User:Cburnett gives good format! --Wetman 12:06, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Merge with List of U.S. state dinosaurs[edit]

I propose this merger because the overlap is obvious, and the other list is pretty sparse. There's no big deal if there are double listings because that can be simply handled as they have been at other lists of state emblems. I also think that this page needs to be moved to *List of U.S. state fossils* to match up with the other U.S. state emblem lists. —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 23:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong yes to the rename, mild no to the merge. I think the two articles already do a good job of referring back and forth to each other, and they really are two distinct (if closely related) things. Having two separate pages helps dispel the confusion between the two, plus "list of U.S. state fossils" would be slightly inaccurate and a "list of U.S. state fossils and dinosaurs" is a bit unwieldy. Though there's really no reason to list every state on the dinosaur page; going back to just the states with state dinosaurs would be an improvement. | Pat 22:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I second all Pat's recommendations. Grika Ⓣ 22:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to move the article to *List of U.S. state fossils* but was unable to because that redirect has a history (someone had nominated it for speedy deletion and that nomination failed). I've posted the requested move up at Requested moves and am adding the poll below per that page's procedure. —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 22:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I merged the two lists; they strongly overlapped, people were putting hoax entries into the dinosaur list, and finally there was the clear yet anti-intuitive instruction to only include "state dinosaurs" in the other list, not "dinosaurs that are also state fossils", which was technically correct but would leave out several dinosaurs that were state fossils but not state dinosaurs, and which was selectively ignored. If someone disagrees, go ahead and revert back; you'll at least have a revision of a merged version if you want it later. J. Spencer 22:05, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changed my mind and reverted back due to the many new redirects; it's still a lousy situation. Anyway, you'll still have the archived version should things change. I'll take off that merge request, too. J. Spencer 22:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request[edit]

Could someone please put Calymene celebra in the wisconsin section. I tried, but unfortunatly I am not a member. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.222.30.24 (talk) 14:12, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

Minnesota's is missing as well http://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/unsym.aspx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.29.94.47 (talk) 17:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.


State fossil → List of U.S. state fossils — To conform with other lists of state emblems —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 22:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Since this is not a vote, please explain the reasons for your recommendation.


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed from state fossil to List of U.S. state fossils as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 08:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Replacement of lead secn[edit]

I removed all of the old section:

Though every state in the United States has a State Bird and a State Flower, not every state in the United States has a State Fossil.
State fossils tend to be quite dramatic. California has chosen the Pleistocene saber-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis familiar from the La Brea Tar Pits, and Alaska has the Woolly mammoth, Mammuthus primigenius. Of course there are plenty of dinosaurs (Colorado's Stegosaurus, New Jersey's duck-bill Hadrosaurus foulki or Montana's Maiasaura peeblesorum) and even sets of dinosaur footprints (both Connecticut and Massachusetts). Nevada recalls its days as beachfront property with a Triassic Ichthyosaur, Shonisaurus popularis. Idaho has chosen an early horse, Equus simplicidens. Alabama and Mississippi have a pair of Eocene archaeocete whales, and Vermont has the most recent fossil, Charlotte, the Vermont Whale, a Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) from an arm of the sea that extended into Pleistocene Vermont. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio are represented by trilobites. New York has the less-familiar Eurypterid, and Maine has gone out on a limb with an early vascular plant from the Devonian, Pertica quadrifaria.
Some of the State Fossils are a little generic, like Georgia's unspecified shark's tooth, but Illinois is represented by the unique and mysterious Tully Monster Tullimonstrum gregarium from the Carboniferous swamplands.

The Georgia shark's tooth and the two dino-track examples may be worth mention when the meaning of "a little generic" (do they designate all fossilized sharks' teeth found in the state? a specific tooth? three specific teeth of two species?) and "sets of dinosaur footprints" (all those that ever may be found in CT's Dinosaur State Park, perhaps?) in CT and MA become known to us. (And similarly for the Florida agatized coral, not mentioned above.) But virtually all of the removed text is unencyclopedic fluff, rising to a peak with the rd-lk to "gone out on a limb" -- where the omission of the wink-emoticon is hard to understand.

A list does not necessarily need a text introduction longer than a defining sentence. I've included the new lead for a stub, more with the thot that it's worth reviving State fossil as an article (roughly my new lead, as the intial stub) that discusses, e.g.

  1. when the apparent trend toward state fossils began and took off,
  2. the rationales offered for it, especially in early-adopter states,
  3. the "styles" of insignia involved (e.g.,
    1. single specimen vs. all specimens of the species when found in the state vs. (if my suspicions are right) the specific tracks publicly displayed at CT DSP, regardless of species,
    2. organics-replacements fossils vs casts,
    3. plant vs animal
    4. drama vs scientific impact
    5. etc).

BTW, i've left out mentioning that the list already is not restricted to the 50 states; DC is in there, and tho i don't know the term to invoke -- probably not "state substitutes" -- we should include PR, USVI and the 3 or so non-state entities in the Pacific that are being used to extend the state-quarters series.
--Jerzy•t 03:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Title & table format[edit]

I propose that, in tandem, we
-- rename to List of fossils as U.S. state insignia (or insignias, which is completely acceptable in modern English and eliminates the amibiguity: this is not about cases where a fossil is the (principal) insignia -- or, in proper Latin, insigne -- of the state), and
-- modify the table, which is already dealing with including state dinos and stones (but in a haphazard fashion), perhaps thus:

State -- Age -- Common name -- Binomial nomenclature -- Image -- Year & Citation

are current columns. I would

  1. ChangeBinomial nomenclature to Scientific name, since a genus, family, etc. may be more applicable
  2. Move Year & Citation somewhere to left, rather than being segregated at the margin by the pic or empty pic-space
  3. Add State fossil?, a column with Y (or X or a bullet) in most rows and N (or - or blank) in the rest, indicating whether the fossil the row represents is the state fossil, or something else
  4. Add Other , a column with "rock", "stone", "gemstone", or "dinosaur" as appropriate (bcz one of those is a designated state insignia that is a fossil but not the state fossil

Note that for Colorado, where the Stego does double duty (or so WP says), Y and dino both apply; in cases that have different dino and fossil, two sub-rows within the state's row are needed.

Finally, in the table, i've removed the word "undetermined" from the GA, KY, LA, MA, and WV rows. If it means "WP doesn't know", it should be a blank waiting to be filled, not an implicit self-ref. If it means

  1. the official statement was vague, or
  2. there are two species consistent with the specific specimens that are designated, or motivated the designation (by being found in the state, i suppose), and no scientific method for distinguishing them is yet known since, say, their tails are missing,

then language distinguishing those must be worked out to replace the ambiguous term "undetermined". (If no one comes forward saying "i filled those cells, and i meant X", i suppose i'll dig thru the history to identify the editor(s) responsible, in hopes of asking them.)

Altho it's another question, i think the dino and mineral/rock/stone/gemstone lists can continue to function as they already do -- or something similar to what i propose above may be desirable for them, to cover cases where there's a fossil that is a stone or dinosaur, but nothing explicitly designated as stone or dinosaur.
--Jerzy•t 03:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In contrast to Colorado, Wash has a mammoth as fossil and petrified wood as gemstone; other states have petrified wood or petrified coral as other than state fossil, but i'm not sure whether they have explicit fossils as well.
--Jerzy•t 03:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Minnesota[edit]

Minnesota is blue on the map but does not have an entry. I'm confused! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.5.42 (talk) 19:56, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From a quick search, it looks like Minnesota has no official state fossil, though legislation declaring one has been introduced but not signed. I imagine that was the source of confusion for whomever made the map. The giant beaver seems to be the lead contender; I wish they would make it official. Walkersam (talk) 03:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Louisiana[edit]

The picture shows a Palmoxylon from Dresden (Germany).--Einheit3 (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Texas on the map[edit]

Can someone change the map to show that Texas doesn't have a state fossil? It has a state dino, which was in the table, but I removed it since it's not officially the state fossil as well. —Ayuskoto (talk) 07:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Map needs to change Indiana to blue as it added one on February this year as the chart states. Sorry but I was reluctant to mess that file up.[edit]

Map needs to change Indiana to blue as it added one on February this year as the chart states. Sorry but I was reluctant to mess that file up. The Master Guns (talk) 22:07, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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