Permitted Pursuits

Fossil Hunting in Wyoming

4 locations in Wyoming checked against the rules of the agency that manages each one: 3 allowed, 1 prohibited. Each page gives the permit requirements, limits, restrictions and penalties, with the primary sources it was checked against.

Rules last checked between July 2026 and August 2026

3 Allowed
1 Prohibited

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All 4 Fossil Hunting Sites in Wyoming at a Glance

SiteVerdictChecked
Como BluffCarbonAllowed
Fossil Butte National MonumentLincolnProhibited
Green River Formation (BLM)LincolnAllowed
Lance Creek Fossil Site (BLM)NiobraraAllowed

Site Guides

Allowed

Como Bluff

Wyoming, Carbon·Fossil Hunting

Como Bluff is open for casual collection of invertebrate and plant fossils from the Sundance and Morrison Formations. The dinosaur fossils that made this site famous — Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, Stegosaurus — are vertebrate material and prohibited from casual collection under PRPA 2009.

  • Invertebrate and plant fossils: casual collection allowed up to 25 lb per person per day on BLM land under PRPA 2009 and 43 CFR 49.810
  • Vertebrate fossils (dinosaur bones, teeth, tracks, and any fish or reptile material): prohibited from casual collection — all vertebrate material must be left in place
Prohibited

Fossil Butte National Monument

Wyoming, Lincoln·Fossil Hunting

All fossil collecting is prohibited at Fossil Butte National Monument under 36 CFR 2.1 — the federal casual-collection allowance that applies to nearby BLM land does not extend to National Park Service units. Private fee-dig quarries three minutes from the visitor center offer the legal alternative.

  • Collecting any fossil, rock, or natural object is prohibited under 36 CFR 2.1(a)(1) — this covers surface fragments and loose shale pieces, not just intact specimens
  • PRPA 2009's casual-collection allowance for invertebrate and plant fossils applies only to BLM and Bureau of Reclamation land under 43 CFR Part 49 — it does not extend to National Park Service units, so 'it's just a fish fossil' is not an exception here
Allowed

Green River Formation (BLM)

Wyoming, Lincoln·Fossil Hunting

The Green River Formation's famous Knightia fish are vertebrate material — casual collecting on open BLM land near Kemmerer does not include them, despite widespread mislabeling as an invertebrate fossil. Plant and insect fossils are casually collectable under PRPA 2009; the fish come only from fee-dig quarries on leased or private ground.

  • Common invertebrate and plant fossils (insects, plant impressions, ostracods) may be casually collected on open BLM land. The limit is 25 lb per person per day, no permit, under PRPA 2009 and 43 CFR 49.810
  • CRITICAL: Knightia and all other Green River fish are vertebrate material, not invertebrate, despite frequent mislabeling — casual collecting does not cover them on BLM land under any circumstance
Allowed

Lance Creek Fossil Site (BLM)

Wyoming, Niobrara·Fossil Hunting

Casual collecting of invertebrate and plant fossils is allowed without a permit at the BLM's Lance Creek Fossil Site — but this exact drainage is the type locality for Triceratops and Torosaurus, and that history makes the standard PRPA ban on unpermitted vertebrate collecting matter more here than almost anywhere else.

  • Casual collecting of common invertebrate fossils (mollusks, ostracods) and plant fossils is allowed without a permit under PRPA 2009 and 43 CFR Part 49, up to a reasonable personal-use amount
  • Vertebrate fossils — dinosaur bone, teeth, and any other vertebrate material — cannot be collected without a research permit, and this rule carries unusual weight here: the Lance Formation is named for this exact creek, where John Bell Hatcher collected more than 50 ceratopsian skeletons for O.C. Marsh between 1889 and 1892, including the first known Triceratops and Torosaurus specimens

Laws That Apply to These Sites

The Paleontological Resources Preservation Act (PRPA), Explained

Every fossil-hunting site on this site traces back to the same 2009 federal law — the one that draws the line between a shell you can legally pocket and a bone fragment that's a federal crime to remove, based on nothing but which kind of animal it came from.

36 CFR § 2.1 Explained: Why National Park Land Bans Collecting

One federal regulation is cited more than any other statute on this site — across metal detecting, beachcombing, fossil hunting, and rockhounding alike. It actually contains two separate bans, not one, and knowing the difference is the reason a metal detector broken down in a backpack is legal to carry across the same ground where using it would be a federal offense.

BLM Personal-Use Collecting Rules: Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils

Most BLM land allows collecting rocks, minerals and common invertebrate fossils for personal use, with no permit. Federal law sets no weight limit for rocks: just 'reasonable amounts'. The 25-pound figure is the federal limit for fossils and petrified wood, and some BLM state offices apply it to rocks too. Vertebrate fossils need a permit.