Helpful bacteria
Whilst bacteria usually destroy soft tissues, some times they may actually help preserve them. When an animal such as a fish dies, bacteria spread onto the soft parts to feed. Under the microscope, some fossils with soft tissue preserved reveal a surprise. It is not soft tissue that has been preserved at all, but the bacteria living on the soft tissue. The soft tissue has decayed but the bacteria have been preserved. There are so many of these bacteria, and they are so small, that to the human eye, it looks like the soft tissue itself has been preserved. This process is called autolithification.
Are fossilisation processes a bad thing?
Most ‘taphonomic’ processes could be seen as a bad thing; after all, the destructive nature of these processes, such as physical damage, decay, and crushing after burial, all seem to result in a loss of information. This is true from a biological perspective because the less information that is preserved, the less we can learn about the animal. But taphonomic processes can also provide us wit useful information. From an ecological point of view, the nature of fossil deposits can show us many environmental factors, such as the strength and direction of currents and wind, and give us a good idea of the diversity of extinct populations.
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