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Fossil fish

Part of Hall of Planet Earth.

Fossil fish_HERO

Knightia is an extinct freshwater herring from the Eocene period (about 40 to 55 million years ago). It lived with many other kinds of fishes in lakes that once covered parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.  The newly developing Rocky Mountains added sediment to the lakes that later formed the rocks in which these fossils were found.

AMNH collection