Kotelnich the uniqueness of the landmark, the only comparable sight being Karoo, South Africa. Annually Russian and foreign scientists find skeleton fragments and bones of ancient animals of the Permian period of Palaeozoic era, Triassic and Jurassic periods of Mesozoic era. Paleontological museum of Kotelnich was opened in 1994. It exhibits both the findings from the excavation site in Kotelnich, and the replicas of the most famous findings from Germany, the USA, and Mongolia. The exposition of the museum shows the global geological and evolution processes that took place on Earth about 200 million years ago. The workers of the museum
Scleractinia on which to base a hypothesis about the origin of the scleractinians; plenty is known about modern species but very little about fossil specimens, which first appeared in the record in the Middle Triassic (). It was not until 25 million years later that they became important reef builders, their success perhaps a result of teaming up with symbotic algae. Nine of the sub-orders were in existence by the end of the Triassic and three more had appeared by the Jurassic (200 million years ago), with a further suborder appearing in the Middle Cretaceous (100 million years ago). Some may