Fun Facts Fossils come from the Latin word Fossilium. It means to be dug up from below the earth's surface.
Fossils can be anything from preserved bones and teeth to shells of ancient creatures.
They help us reconstruct life in the past. Most of the rocks in Alberta contain fossils. The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology made the first Canadian discovery of whole dinosaur eggs in 1987 at a place called Devil's Coulee in southern Alberta. Groups of duck-billed dinosaurs gathered to mate, nest and hatch their eggs here. The parents protected their tiny hatchlings from predators until the young were old enough to function on their own.