Fossil Island fossil

Fossils are items on Fossil Island that are used to build displays on the bottom floor of the Varrock Museum (below the natural history floor). Completing a display requires a complete set of one type of fossil (i.e. small/medium/large) and grants 2 Kudos and an experience lamp based on the type of category of the fossils. They can be sold to the Fossil Collector in exchange for numulites, or used on the mycelium pool to create enriched bones which can be further processed to eventually gain some Prayer experience.

Fossil uses

Varrock Museum

In the lowest floor of Varrock Museum, there are 14 small displays, 12 medium displays, 5 large displays and 5 plant displays. To complete a fossil display, you will need to provide 5 cleaned fossils of the appropriate type. In total, you will need 70 small fossils, 60 medium fossils, 25 large fossils and 25 plant fossils. Note that unidentified large fossils have a chance of becoming either large fossils or plant fossils upon cleaning.

There are a total of 36 displays in this exhibit. Five fossils of the same type are required to complete a corresponding display. Completing a display awards 2 kudos and an antique lamp that rewards either 2,000, 3,500 or 5,000 experience. This amounts to a total of 72 kudos and 120,000 experience.

Display type	Amount	Fossils required	Antique lamp (min. skill level)
Small display	14	70 small fossils	2,000 experience (level 20)
Medium display	12	60 medium fossils	3,500 experience (level 30)
Plant display	5	25 large fossils (plant)	5,000 experience (level 35)
Large display	5	25 large fossils (regular)	5,000 experience (level 35)
Total	36 displays	180 fossils	120,000 experience

Mycelium pool

The mycelium pool will turn fossils into enriched bones which give prayer experience.

• Small enriched bones are worth 500 prayer experience.
• Medium enriched bones are worth 1,000 prayer experience.
• Large enriched bones from large fossils are worth 1,500 prayer experience.
• Rare enriched bones are worth 2,500 prayer experience.

Fossil Collector

The Fossil Collector gives numulites in return for identified or unidentified fossils found around the island:

• Small fossils can be exchanged for 100 numulites.
• Medium and plant fossils can be exchanged for 200 numulites.
• Large fossils can be exchanged for 300 numulites.
• Rare fossils can be exchanged for 500 numulites.

Ancient wyvern shield

The Ancient wyvern shield can be charged with fossils as an alternative to numulites. Charging the shield with numulites can be rather costly, and since it is more economical to use fossils to charge the shield rather than trade them to the fossil collector for numulites for the same purpose, players may be advised to save fossils for this particular use.

Obtaining fossils

Fossils may be obtained from Mairin's Market and from certain actions that roll the fossil drop table.

Every time you roll the fossil drop table, there is a chance you may receive either a fossil, numulite or nothing.

If you receive a fossil, the chance of you receiving each kind of fossil is as follows:

Fossil type	Drop chance
Unidentified small fossil	50%
Unidentified medium fossil	25%
Unidentified large fossil	20%
Unidentified rare fossil	5%

The fossil drop table is as follows:

Actions dropping fossils and numulites
Method		Fossil		Numulite		Nothing
	Herbiboar (per trail reveal with experience drop) (About 2.56 rolls per Herbiboar)	7/175	4%	63/175	36%	105/175	60%
	Getting fragment from Volcanic Mine	5/175	2.9%	45/175	25.7%	125/175	71.4%
	Underwater Thieving (per experience drop)	6/175	3.4%	54/175	30.9%	115/175	65.7%
	Bowl of fish (purchased from Mairin's Market)	2/175	1.1%	18/175	10.3%	155/175	88.6%
	Sulliusceps (per experience drop)	5/175	2.9%	45/175	25.7%	125/175	71.4%
	Tar Monster	5/175	2.9%	45/175	25.7%	125/175	71.4%
	Hoop Snake	3/175	1.7%	27/175	15.4%	145/175	82.9%
	Deranged archaeologist	12/175	6.9%	108/175	61.7%	55/175	31.4%
	Ammonite Crab	3/175	1.7%	27/175	15.4%	145/175	82.9%
	Ancient Zygomite	7/175	4%	63/175	36%	105/175	60%
	Lobstrosity	5/175	2.9%	45/175	25.7%	125/175	71.4%
	Lesser Wyvern	10/175	5.7%	90/175	51.4%	75/175	42.9%
	Ancient Wyvern	12/175	6.9%	108/175	61.7%	55/175	31.4%
	Drift net fishing (1/25 chance per fish)	3/4375	0.1%	27/4375	0.6%	145/4375	3.3%
	Digging in Museum Camp soil	1/14000	0%	9/175	5.1%	165/175	94.3%

Strategy

This guide makes the assumption that an unidentified large fossil will turn into a large fossil 50% of the time, and a plant fossil 50% of the time.

In order to complete the Varrock Museum, you will need approximately 55 unidentified large fossils (95% confidence interval 50-65) in order to get 25 plant fossils and 25 identified large fossils, 60 unidentified medium fossils and 70 small fossils. The rate-limiting step is the unidentified large fossil.

If you are using Mairin's Market, you should save your points and then evaluate the specific fossils you need to achieve your total of 25 plant fossils, 25 large identified fossils and 60 medium fossils.

Large fossil gathering
Method		Actions/hour	Drop rate		/hour	Time for 55
	Herbiboar	130	7/875	0.8%	1	52.9 hours
	Volcanic Mine	235	5/875	0.6%	1.3	41 hours
	Underwater Thieving + Mairin's Market	200-240	6/875 + shop	0.7% + shop	2-2.4	22.5-27 hours
	Bowl of fish	5	2/875	0.2%	Buy fossils from Mairin's Market instead of this
	Sulliusceps	591 ( 80); 745 ( 90)	5/875	0.6%	3.4; 4.3	16.3 hours 12.9 hours
	Tar Monster	Slow	5/875	0.6%	Slow	Long
	Hoop Snake	Slow	3/875	0.3%	Slow	Long
	Deranged archaeologist	≈30	12/875	1.4%	0.4	133.7 hours
	Ammonite Crab	162 ( 72)	3/875	0.3%	0.6	99 hours
	Ancient Zygomite	137 (114 melee combat)	7/875	0.8%	1.1	50.2 hours
	Lobstrosity	200	5/875	0.6%	1.1	48.1 hours
	Lesser Wyvern	≈35	10/875	1.1%	0.4	137.5 hours
	Ancient Wyvern	<≈35	12/875	1.4%	0.5	114.6 hours
	Drift net fishing (1/25 chance per fish)	≈1000 (Trident required)	3/21875	0.013%	0.1	401 hours
	Museum Camp soil	1000-3000	1/280000	~0%	0.004-0.01	5133.3-15400 hours

Cleaning fossils

Unidentified fossils can be cleaned to identify them at the fossil cleaning bench east of the Museum Camp on Fossil Island or on the specimen tables in Varrock museum.

Storing fossils

Fossil storage crates are located throughout various parts of Fossil Island. An additional fossil storage crate can be found in the basement section of the Varrock Museum.

Note: You can add and remove both cleaned and uncleaned (unidentified) fossils to any of the storage crates around Fossil Island as the contents of all storage crates are synchronized. This means you can clean fossils in the Museum Camp on Fossil Island, store them in the storage crate there, then collect the cleaned fossils from the storage crate in the basement of the Varrock Museum when you are ready to add the cleaned fossils to exhibits, thus avoiding having to take multiple inventories back and forth between the museum camp and museum.

Disabling fossils

Should players wish to stop seeing fossils on the island whilst doing various activities that provide them, players should speak to Peter on the south-west part of the Fossil island camp. There, players can toggle whether or not they can find regular fossils (including small, medium and large fossils). There is also an option to toggle on Unidentified rare fossils should players wish to keep the chance of finding them whilst doing activities on the island.