Make a quiz about this text: Learning from Fossils. A fossil is a part of a plant or animal thathas been preserved in the Earth. Fossils, like bones, teeth, and footprints, help people learn important things about the past. Palaeontologists learned a lot about dinosaurs from their fossilized footprints. They determined whether some dinosaurs walked on two or four legs, and if a dinosaur traveled in groups or alone, by looking af the number of footprints. They learned that many dinosaurs walked with their tails in the air, because the footprints did not have any “drag marks” near them. By looking af how far apart some footprints were, palaeontologists discovered the fastest dinosaurs could run over 40 kilometers per hour. By examining fossilized shark teeth, scientists determined that sharks lived over 400 million years ago, before the dinosaurs. They learned that one prehistoric shark, called Squalicorax, had teeth with edges like a knife. Scientists discovered that the Squalicorax ate large fish and reptiles, because they found fossilized bones of these animals with Squalicorax teeth in them! People will continue fo learn even more about the past from fossils.