Gainesville, Florida – Fossil hunters in Florida are digging up amazing finds. Including prehistoric creatures such as rhinoceros, sabretooth cats and the ancient relatives of elephants
Florida is one of the richest states in paleontology. And there are new discoveries every day.
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University of Florida researchers recently discovered the remains of a giant, 10,000-pound gomphothere, a four-tusked relative of elephants that roamed the pre-human region, according to News 6 partner WJXT.
The discovery was made on private property about 45 minutes southwest of Gainesville in an area known as Montbrook.
For seven years hundreds of paleontologists, UF students and volunteers have been excavating the site.
“It’s an incredibly special place,” said Dr. Jonathan Bloch, a professor of paleontology at UF who oversees the Bloch Lab. “We have the skull of a giant elephant relative where the lower jaw meets the upper jaw.”
The discovery came after Timber, a 5-year-old girl, found some of the bones while walking with her mother and grandmother on the family property. They turned their bones to UF and Bloch and his team began to study them.
“I just told Jonathan (Bloch) that you will take care of it. And whatever he said,” landowner Eddie Hodge said. “I just sent people to find him. I’m just glad to be a part of it. My whole family is.”
at the same site Researchers have found bones from sabertooth cats, rhinos, lynxes, crocodiles, turtles and fish.
The samples are preserved in a lab at Dickinson Hall at UF, where volunteers use screwdrivers and dental tools to carefully clean them.
“If you want to be a fossil preparer, Or do you think it makes sense to sit in your front yard and mow the grass with a nail clipper? Show you have the right idea,” said volunteer Ken Marks. “Nothing here is going fast.”
The largest gomphethere fossils in Montbrook will soon require cranes and carts to bring them back to campus. Each stage is a puzzle piece that has never been seen before.
“This looks like part of the pelvis. But there were lots of bones that were clumped together,” Bloch said as he looked at the partially excavated Guomfotier remains. “A great mystery has emerged. Where is its head? That’s what we really want to know.”
Some of the best examples are on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Florida Fossils exhibit on UF’s campus. who used to roam around or swim in Florida This includes megalodon sharks. giant ground sloth and frightened birds
However, there is no real record of dinosaurs. roaming around in Florida Researchers say Florida was underwater during the time dinosaurs were on Earth.
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