Paleontology often faces phenomena so vast and complex they can be described only through statistics. First applied to the study of a population in 1662 statistics is today a basic tool for natural sciences practitioners, and a solid acquaintance with methods and applications is essential for communication purposes within the scientific community. Thanks to the diffusion of powerful low-cost computers and the availability of many software tools for statistical analysis, data elaboration is now open to a much wider users pool than before.