There are a lot of Fossils for you to find in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but they don’t have their own version of the Critterpedia, which can make it hard to figure out at a glance what you need to complete your collection. You do have a couple of different in-game ways to track your Fossils, though, although one’s inconvenient and the other’s in the last place you might think to look.
Here’s how to keep track of your Fossil collection in New Horizons.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Collected Fossils and How to See Them
Fossils are easy to find in New Horizons once you have even a flimsy shovel. Any time you spot a star-shaped crater on the ground, you can dig there to find a Fossil. You can find up to four Fossils per day at home, which is randomized daily, and you can always find at least two Fossil digsites whenever you visit a Mystery Island. If you like, you can speed up your first steps into Fossil collecting by “time-traveling” forward and collecting all the newly-respawned digsites on your island every day.
There are a total of 74 individual Fossils available from digsites in New Horizons. There are another 35 full-size dinosaur skeletons, like T. rexes and triceratops, that you can put back together if you find all the right parts.
Once you’ve established a Museum on your island, you can ask Blathers to assess any Fossils you’ve got in your possession. Once he’s had a look, he’ll ask you to donate any new Fossils you’ve found to the Museum, for storage and display in your official collection. You can find your donated Fossils after that by walking down the steps in the middle of the Museum.
If you’re looking for a little more convenience than that, however, you can actually turn to Nook Shopping. If you tab over to the wallpaper and flooring section of the catalog, whether you’re using the Shopping machine in Resident Services or the app on your NookPhone, it also includes a handy alphabetical list of all the Fossils you’ve found so far.
You can’t reorder Fossils from the catalogue the way you can with other goods from Nook Shopping, but it does have an assortment of lists of all the collectibles you’ve found so far. If you want to take these lists with you on the go, you can unlock the Nook Shopping app for your NookPhone by ordering a total of 100 items via the Shopping machine in Residential Services.
Once you’ve found enough Fossils that you’re starting to get a lot of duplicates, you can sell them at Nook’s Cranny to open up a new revenue stream. Fossils can sell for between 1,000 and 6,000 Bells, which makes them a surprisingly great way to make money fast in the early game.
As an alternative, you can use some of the cooler Fossils as island decoration, especially once you complete one of the bigger multi-part Fossils like the Ankylosaurus. When you place a Fossil in the world, it automatically comes with a fancy wooden stand, which is a perfect custom decoration for your house’s living room or foyer. Embrace your inner palentologist by turning your entire island into the dinosaur museum of your dreams!
You can also swap your extra Fossils to other players like baseball cards, in order to complete your full set. If you don’t have any other aspiring archeologists on your friends list, you can check with online Animal Crossing trading communities like the AC Trade subreddit.
While you’re working on your Fossil collection, there are a lot of other goals to pursue and fun things to do on your desert island hideaway. We’ve got a ton of tips and tricks on Animal Crossing: New Horizons at our game hub, including:
- When you bring friends over to your island, they can actually help your flowers grow faster
- Finish your K.K. Slider discography with this guide to his setlist
- Make your island go from good to great with this guide to achieving a 5-star rating
With full-size dinosaur skeletons available in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it’s only a matter of time before Tom Nook decides to open Jurassic Park. The only question is whether he’ll let the dinosaurs stay there for free, or suck them all into a pay-as-you-go lending deal in exchange for the ability to gradually develop their pens into cozy jungle cottages. Add your own details to what I think just became a weird crossover film pitch via our official Twitter, @PrimaGames.
