Is There Any Pest Which May Has The Potential In Consuming Your Fossils And Damage It?

[Melissawow]

I have been wondering, since pests such as rats, cockroaches, silverfish, etc may potentially destroys collection of books, antiques, furniture.

So what is the main foe of fossils? Any pest which could have eat up your fossils?

[erose]

Ha! Never heard of any fossil eating pests. But I have had labels eaten by Silverfish and I have had fossils destroyed by both humidity and drying out.

[Rec0128]

People are by far the biggest threat to fossils. Watch out for those pesky things and you should be fine. My friend had his little brother throw a 5" meg down the stairs a few years back, needless to say it didn't end well. Fossils are pretty though considering they're composed of rock, so nothing should really bother them.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Rec0128

[CH4ShotCaller]

Pyrite disease ( https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCgQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpreparation.paleo.amnh.org%2F56%2Fpyrite-disease&ei=SvyNU8LoD4vKsQS-4YBo&usg=AFQjCNGnXy0hyrY5DERdMq4aU8ZYKtcQww&sig2=zueVwzV0MuLag5hqX0IV2A ) which can be a pest for some folks that have fossils with pyrite. Fungi, Dermestid beetles, mice, cockroaches, Silverfish, etc are very destructive to subfossils.

Edited June 3, 2014 by CH4ShotCaller

[fossilized6s]

I would say humans and natural elements (sun for some, fire....obviously, freezing, rain, etc.) I've never heard of and rock eating pests.

[oilshale]

Won't eat them, but at least spider droppings can be quite aggresive on carbonate and can cause color deteriorations.

Thomas

[MikeR]

I can attest to mice. They chew up labels and their urine will make difficult to impossible to remove rust brown staining on white fossil shell.

Mike

[Bullsnake]

Byne's disease.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byne%27s_disease

[RyanNREMTP]

Kids.

[fossilized6s]

Kids.

+1 lol

[Herb]

rug rats

[Auspex]

Parents (long, long ago...)

[Triceratops]

Malicious people

[Fossildude19]

Clumsy people.

Regards,

[Scylla]

I know of several collections destroyed by Mothers cleaning up. One person told me " I used to collect trilobites, but my Mom threw out my collection when I went to college!"

[quietfocus]

Kids.

Ha! Yup. Proven to be the biggest threat to my collection. Oh well. Hopefully teaches them to handle them with more care next time. It's pretty traumatic to see daddy wailing and sobbing on the floor.

[Fossildude19]

Impatience, and carelessness - I have ruined more fossils than I care to admit due to field trimming or overeager prepping.

Regards,

[JimB88]

Impatience, and carelessness - I have ruined more fossils than I care to admit due to field trimming or overeager prepping.

Regards,

Im guilty of that one!

Plus most of the awesome pyritized wood I collected from a near by coal seam has turned into white powder,

[howard_l]

I had a dog that would get into boxes of fossils I had stored in a building, I don't think he ever ate any but he would carry them off and lose them. He once carried off a brand new rock hammer and I never found it again.

[6ix]

+1 for kids - my own fault for encouraging them tho. I still have a gastropod swirl that the 3 year old found sitting on my bedside cabinet.. She was so stoked that she found it, the first thing she could think of was to give it to me.

[Fitch1979]

PYRITE .. for sure!

and .. eh .. *others*