History of invertebrate paleozoology and simpler sea-dwelling organisms. By far, invertebrate paleozoology is the easiest type of fossil collecting. "Unlike" the difficult-to-analyze and hard-to-interpret fossils of paleobotany (plants) and micropaleontology (microbes), and "unlike" the rarely found and poorly preserved skeletons of vertebrate paleontology, invertebrate fossils are usually both common and simple to identify. This is because many prehistoric invertebrates were hard-shelled mollusks, brachiopods, trilobites, bryozoans, crinoids or corals who were buried amid marine, sediment-preserving conditions; and therefore frequently fossilized. Stone-age people were without doubt the very first fossil collectors. Fossilized echinoderms have been found in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, central England, decorating a long-buried human skeleton;
Invertebrate Invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a "backbone" or "spine"), derived from the notochord. This includes all animals apart from the subphylum Vertebrata. Familiar examples of invertebrates include insects; crabs, lobsters and their kin; snails, clams, octopuses and their kin; starfish, sea-urchins and their kin; jellyfish, and worms. The majority of animal species are invertebrates; one estimate puts the figure at 97%. Many invertebrate taxa have a greater number and variety of species than the entire subphylum of Vertebrata. Some of the so-called invertebrates, such as the Tunicata and Cephalochordata are