Animal Crossing fossil list: how many fossils, how to find fossils and every fossil price in New Horizons explained
It belongs in the Museum!
Fossils are the skeletal remains of what once lived on your island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and, like bugs, fish, paintings and sea creatures, can be donated to the Museum.
First, however, you need to know how to find fossils and how many different types of fossils are hidden away on your island.
With this knowledge, you can start collecting fossils and either donate them to the Museum, sell them or transform your island into a relatively safe version of Jurassic Park.
On this page:
- How many fossils are there in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
- How to find fossils in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- How to assess fossils in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- How to complete the fossil exhibit in the Museum in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Fossil set and price list
- Other uses for fossils in Animal Crossing: New Horizons explained
How many fossils are there in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
There are 73 different fossils for you to find in New Horizons.
This total consists of 14 stand-alone fossils and 21 fossil sets, which contain between two to six individual fossils and, when placed together, create one dinosaur skeleton.
How to find fossils in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
To find fossils in New Horizons, you first need to equip yourself with a shovel. Once you've brought or crafted this tool, it's time to explore the island until you find a crack in the ground shaped like an X.
Just like in any good pirate story, the treasure lies beneath the X and by using your shovel on the crack, you'll unearth a fossil.
You won't, however, know what type of fossil you've found, until you've had it assessed.
There will be at least four fossil cracks for you to find every day and, if you don't collect them, then two more cracks will appear the following day, bringing the maximum amount of fossils you can find on your island at one time to six.
If you do dig up the four fossils, then a new set of four will appear after 5am, which is the island reset time for every island.
You can also find fossils on the Mystery Island tours, which can purchase tickets for at the Nook Stop in Residential Services using Nook Miles.
Whether or not you find a fossil on a Mystery Island is completely random and, if you do, you will only be able to find the one. For this reason, we don't recommend using Mystery Island tours exclusively for fossil hunting - you're better off saving your Nook Miles and focusing on the fossils found on your island.
How to assess fossils in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
After you've collected a couple of fossils in New Horizons, it's time to discover exactly what you've excavated.
To do this you need to head to the Museum and to Blathers. Next select the option 'Assess fossils' and choose which fossil that you wish to have appraised.
Blathers will then tell you exactly which fossils you've found, transforming the fossils in your inventory into their named form. He will also tell you whether or not the Museum currently has the fossils in their collection.
If you do have a fossil the Museum is missing, then you can donate it by selecting 'Make a donation' when you talk to Blathers again.
The fossils you receive are randomly selected, so there's no guarantee that you will receive a certain fossil. Instead, you need to keep collecting fossils and having them assessed, until you get lucky.
How to complete the fossil exhibit in the Museum in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
If you want to complete the fossil exhibit at the Museum in New Horizons, then you need to donate one of every single fossil found in the game.
This is a task that, thanks to how the fossils are randomly selected, will most likely take you a couple of months, especially if you're the only player living on your island.
All you can do is continue digging up the fossils that appear around your island and handing them in for assessment with Blathers.
If you have friends who play New Horizons, however, and they find one of your missing fossils, then they can always give you the fossil and then you can donate it to the Museum.
To discover which fossils you're missing, head down into the fossil exhibit. There you'll be able to interact with the various displays, whether you've completed them or not, and it will hopefully give you an idea about exactly which fossils you need to complete the exhibit.
Sadly, the only reward you'll receive for completing the Museum in New Horizons is Blathers' smile, but at least he's happy.
The Animal Crossing 2.0 update and Happy Home Paradise is here! We can help you with the new additions - including where to find Brewster, Gyroids, new villagers, ordinances, new fences, storage shed, new hairstyles, Froggy Chair, group stretching and Kapp'n boat tours. Cooking is now unlockable, so you need to know how to make both flour and sugar, as well as how to grow carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. Meanwhile, if you're new to Animal Crossing, our New Horizons tips can help with the basics. From the off, there's fish and bugs to catch, flowers and fruit to grow with. One long term goal is building your Happy Home Academy score. Finally, you need tools such as the new ladder and vaulting pole to fully explore.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Fossil set and price list
Unlike fish, bugs and sea creatures, fossils in New Horizons are not seasonal, which means you can find any of the 73 fossils at any point of the year.
The only issue is that fossils you receive from assessment are randomly selected, which means that you may find yourself waiting a number of weeks simply to find one fossil. Thankfully, fossils are worth their weight in Bells and selling them can make you a healthy profit that you can reliably receive every day.
Below you'll find every fossil that you can excavate in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, including which fossils are part of which sets and the selling price for each fossil.
| Fossil Name | Price | Set |
|---|---|---|
| Acanthostega | 2000 | Stand alone fossil |
| Amber | 1200 | Stand alone fossil |
| Ammonite | 1100 | Stand alone fossil |
| Ankylo skull | 3500 | Ankylosaurus |
| Ankylo tail | 2500 | Ankylosaurus |
| Ankylo torso | 3000 | Ankylosaurus |
| Anomalocaris | 2000 | Stand alone fossil |
| Archaeopteryx | 1300 | Stand alone fossil |
| Archelon skull | 4000 | Archelon |
| Archelon tail | 3500 | Archelon |
| Australopith | 1100 | Stand alone fossil |
| Brachio chest | 5500 | Brachiosaurus |
| Brachio pelvis | 5000 | Brachiosaurus |
| Brachio skull | 6000 | Brachiosaurus |
| Brachio tail | 5500 | Brachiosaurus |
| Coprolite | 1100 | Stand alone fossil |
| Deinony tail | 2500 | Deinonychus |
| Deinony torso | 3000 | Deinonychus |
| Dimetrodon skull | 5500 | Dimetrodon |
| Dimetrodon torso | 5000 | Dimetrodon |
| Dinosaur track | 1000 | Stand alone fossil |
| Diplo chest | 4000 | Diplodocus |
| Diplo neck | 4500 | Diplodocus |
| Diplo pelvis | 4500 | Diplodocus |
| Diplo skull | 5000 | Diplodocus |
| Diplo tail | 5000 | Diplodocus |
| Diplo tail tip | 4000 | Diplodocus |
| Dunkleosteus | 3500 | Stand alone fossil |
| Eusthenopteron | 2000 | Stand alone fossil |
| Iguanodon skull | 4000 | Iguanodon |
| Iguanodon tail | 3000 | Iguanodon |
| Iguanodon torso | 3500 | Iguanodon |
| Juramaia | 1000 | Stand alone fossil |
| Left megalo side | 4000 | Megaloceros |
| Left ptera wing | 4500 | Pteranodon |
| Left quetzal wing | 5000 | Quetzalcoatlus |
| Mammoth skull | 3000 | Mammoth |
| Mammoth torso | 2500 | Mammoth |
| Megacero skull | 4500 | Megacerops |
| Megacero tail | 3000 | Megacerops |
| Megacero torso | 3500 | Megacerops |
| Myllokunmingia | 1500 | Stand alone fossil |
| Ophthalmo skull | 2500 | Ophthalmosaurus |
| Ophthalmo torso | 2000 | Ophthalmosaurus |
| Pachy skull | 4000 | Pachycephalosaurus |
| Pachy tail | 3500 | Pachycephalosaurus |
| Parasaur skull | 3500 | Parasaurolophus |
| Parasaur tail | 2500 | Parasaurolophus |
| Parasaur torso | 3000 | Parasaurolophus |
| Plesio skull | 4000 | Plesiosaurus |
| Plesio tail | 4500 | Plesiosaurus |
| Plesio torso | 4500 | Plesiosaurus |
| Ptera body | 4000 | Pteranodon |
| Quetzal torso | 4500 | Quetzalcoatlus |
| Right megalo side | 5500 | Megaloceros |
| Right ptera wing | 4500 | Pteranodon |
| Right quetzal wing | 5000 | Quetzalcoatlus |
| Sabertooth skull | 2500 | Sabertooth tiger |
| Sabertooth tail | 2000 | Sabertooth tiger |
| Shark-tooth pattern | 1000 | Stand alone fossil |
| Spino skull | 4000 | Spinosaurus |
| Spino tail | 2500 | Spinosaurus |
| Spino torso | 5000 | Spinosaurus |
| Stego skull | 5000 | Stegosaurus |
| Stego tail | 4000 | Stegosaurus |
| Stego torso | 4500 | Stegosaurus |
| T.Rex skull | 6000 | Tyrannosaurus rex |
| T.Rex tail | 5000 | Tyrannosaurus rex |
| T.Rex torso | 5500 | Tyrannosaurus rex |
| Tricera skull | 5500 | Triceratops |
| Tricera tail | 4500 | Triceratops |
| Tricera torso | 5000 | Triceratops |
| Trilobite | 1300 | Stand alone fossil |
Other uses for fossils in Animal Crossing: New Horizons explained
Since you're going to have a lot of fossils that you can't donate to the Museum in New Horizons, it's a good idea to know what you can use them for.
The first is obvious - you can sell your spare fossils at Nook's Cranny and, depending on which fossils you've found, you can earn a minimum of 4,000 Bells a day.
Secondly, you can use fossils to decorate both your house and island.
Even if you don't have a complete fossil set, you can mix and match the larger fossil to create your own dinosaurs.
Finally, if you have any spare unassessed fossil, you can use them in the DIY recipe for the Fossil doorplate.
To make the Fossil doorplate you need:
- x1 Unassessed fossil
- x2 Stone
This furniture item can be used to decorate the door of your house, a wall inside your house or you can give it to a villager, so they can place it on their door.
Good luck in your fossil hunting endeavours!