Image: NPS Photo Vincent L. Santucci
About This Quiz
One of America's national treasures is its diverse and bountiful fossil record. To honor their prehistoric pasts, most U.S. states have designated official state fossils, ranging from trilobites to dinosaurs. Find out more about these fossils with our quiz.
All but one of these states has chosen some kind of mammoth as its official fossil. Can you spot the outlier?
Alaska
South Dakota
South Carolina
Alabama and Mississippi don't always see eye-to-eye, but they do share a state fossil: Basilosaurus. Originally mistaken for a marine reptile, we now know Basilosaurus was something else. What sort of creature was it?
a whale
a shark
a sea lion
Which state fossil was taken up to the Mir Space Station?
Pterotrigonia (Tennessee)
Knightia (Wyoming)
Coelophysis (New Mexico)
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Kansas has two state fossils: Pteranodon and Tylosaurus. What did those animals have in common?
They were both dinosaurs.
They both ate plants.
They lived at the same time.
What's the state fossil of Arizona? (Hint: Think national parks.)
petrified conifer wood
the American mastodon
a small species of trilobite
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Chosen in 2008, West Virginia's state fossil was an ice age mammal named after which U.S. president?
Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Jackson
James K. Polk
Oregon's state fossil is the redwood tree Metasequoia. When did that plant go extinct?
10,000 years ago
2 million years ago
It didn't.
Trilobites are popular state fossils. (Just ask Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.) Did these spineless critters live before or after the dinosaurs?
before
after
Trilobites and dinosaurs lived at the same time.
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