ABSTRACT
Although this book focuses on the biologic messages contained in fossils themselves, we cannot neglect their overprint resulting from the biological, physical, and chemical processes, to which the carcass has been subjected after death. From this moment, the bodily remains of an organism become part of the global process of natural recycling that in the end leaves no remains at all. When we still find a fossil, we should properly ask: “What went wrong? Why was it spared the usual fate?”
