Steno was not the first to identify fossils as being from living organisms; his contemporaries Robert Hooke and John Ray, as well as Leonardo da Vinci a century earlier also argued that fossils were the remains of once-living organisms.
Steno nije bio prvi koji je prepoznao da su fosili nekada bili živi organizmi; njegovi suvremenici Robert Hooke i John Ray su se također sporili jesu li fosili ostatci nekadašnjih živih organizama.