P aleontology is the study of plants and animals that lived long ago.
Some people think paleontologists are people who do nothing but dig up old bones.
They do collect bones, but they also collect teeth and claws, skin and hair, fish scales, eggshells, tracks, insects, leaves even microscopic pollen. And paleontologists do more than find and collect. They study the fossils they collect. They study the rocks fossils are buried in. They even study rocks that lie above, below, and near fossils.