Types of Fossils organisms Fossils are many The remains ofrelatively recent as teeth, may not have been types. such altered at all(Figure 11.12) objects are bones, and shells are common examples. Far less common entire animals, flesh included, that have been preserved because of rather unusual circumstances. Remains of prehistoric elephants called mammoths that were frozen in the Arctic tundra of Siberia and Alaska are examples, as are the mummified remains of sloths preserved in a dry cave in Nevada.