Microfossils, by contrast, require substantial magnification for evaluation by fossil-hunters or professional paleontologists.
Macrofossils come in many varieties and form in various ways depending on their environment and what is being fossilized including plant, fungi and animal remnants.
[4] Macrofossils of body parts have been used to reconstruct extinct animals and provide basis for evolutionary lineages.
Georges Cuvier, a naturalist, zoologist and the founding father of paleontology, along with other natural thinkers during the Age of Reason presented fossils as integral evidence in the changing views of natural philosophy at the time from the application of new mathematics and other emerging branches of science.
Algal macrofossils (for instance, brown kelp, sea lettuce and large stromatolites) are increasingly used to analyze prehistoric marine and aquatic ecosystems.
[6] Plant macrofossils are increasingly being used along with pollen microfossils to reconstruct past climates.
[8] Invertebrate macrofossils include remains such as shells, tests, faunal armor, and exoskeletons.