Fossil Collecting in Florida - a Trip Report

Our nice mako and juvenile meg two teeth on the right, along side Cris' meg (left)

When my wife and her friend planned a get together trip in Central Florida earlier this year, she asked if we wanted to turn it into a mini vacation.  Always with fossil collecting in mind, and knowing the rich bounty of fossils that Florida has to offer, my daughter, Riley, and I convinced her to give us a day to go fossil collecting.  This post depicts the planning and actual events of our fossiling experience.

But, where to start?  We know that there are tons of fossils in Florida, but, it's a big state, and all of it was submerged throughout various periods of geologic history.  Our interest this time focused shark teeth, with a chance at finding the prized megatooth, of the largest predatory sharks in recorded history, Carcharocles megalodon.  If you do some research, you can find the popular public place to collect, where you can beachcomb or sift for shark teeth.  But, it would involve a lot of driving and testing to locate spots, and that takes time, and we didn't have the luxury of time.

So, we figured that the best thing to do was to do what anglers do when they want to find a trophy fish, hire a guide.  So, we researched and found some guides that really interested us.  It didn't hurt that we also discovered that someone we "knew" (virtually) from our past experiences on The Fossil Forum and their once heralded chat room that turned out to be a guide.  We booked a trip with Fossil Voyages' PaleoCris and WILDKYLE (their YouTube and Instagram names).  Of course, we had some questions about what to bring, etc. and they answered all of our questions, making it easier to prepare.

Still, this was a February trip, and the trip that we booked called for wading in creeks while shoveling and sifting for fossils.  Our main concern was weather or not to bring waders or hip boots, or if we could we wet wade or not.  In February, we wondered if the water temps in Central Florida were too chilly to wade in.  As it turned out, not at all, this time.  The weather was in the mid-80s all week while we were there, and nighttime lows weren't low enough to chill the water, so wet wading was fine.  After all, why bring heavy waders and pay for another checked bag on the plane?  We were trying to keep our vacation as cheap as possible.  As for other needed equipment, really, all that we needed was ourselves, dressed to get dirty and wet, a change of clothing, sunscreen, bug spray, some snacks and water.  Cris and Kyle supplied all of the collecting equipment.

First, we met them at a public shopping area, and then followed them to one of their favorite spots to take their clients.  From our vehicles, it was a short hike to the creek, and not a long wade to the area to start our fossil search.

So, we started sifting and...well...did they put us on fossils?  You tell me.  On our first and third sifts of the day, we found a nice juvenile meg (short for megalodon) in near perfect condition, and a monster giant mako shark (Carcharodon plicatilis).  This shark is considered by most experts in the field as a direct ancestor to our modern great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias.  The only difference in their teeth are the lack of serrations on the extinct shark.  Other than that, the teeth in each position of the jaw are nearly identical in shape and form.  The colors on this tooth were striking.  In the pic at the top of this article, these two teeth are the smaller of the three teeth pictured.

So, the shoveling and sifting adventure started with a couple huge finds.  Man, I thought then that this would be easy and we'd be wading in meg teeth in no time!  Of course, it's never easy.  You have to work for it, and yes, even here.  Just like catching a monster bass on your first cast, many times you have to work your butt off to find good fish the rest of the day.  That was the case here too.  Now listen, I'm not complaining at all, because at the end of the day, our combined finds were quite amazing for such a short time collecting.  Just a note, we collected until I couldn't take it any more.  Our guide friends would have accommodated us longer and they certainly worked hard for us all day.

About our guides, let me say here that they are first class, nice, friendly and certainly fun, and both Riley and I really enjoyed their company.  But, they were also very knowledgeable, helping Riley and I identify our finds as needed.  We knew about the teeth IDs, but some of the other vertebrate fossils and artifacts required their assistance, and that was much appreciated.  Not only that, my aching back slowed my shoveling pace later in the day, and both Cris and Kyle helped us fill both our sifters.  We couldn't have asked for better guides.

I won't chronicle the rest of the events while collecting, because you can see pretty much what happened for yourself in the two videos that I'll link later in this post.  I highly recommend that you watch and "like" them both, and subscribe to both channels.  But the bottom line is that it was a productive day, and we had an absolute blast, and a pleasure meeting these two avid paleontologists.

In the following pics, I'll explain some of the finds.  Riley and I found most of these finds, but about 1/4 of them were thrown in that Cris and Kyle found, maybe more.  I couldn't remember exactly who found what for the most part.  Riley and I were a team, so anything that I say that I found, or Riley found, we actually found together.

These are the shark teeth, stingray dental plate fragments, and fish fossils found on the day.  The largest complete tooth in the middle is the large giant mako that we found on the third sift, and the small meg to the left was found on the first sift of the day.  Above those teeth are the fish fossils, including three sections of  a sawfish rostrum, a catfish spine,  a barracuda tooth and some other fish teeth.  Below the mako tooth are various smaller shark teeth found during the day, including a smaller mako tooth found by Cris, some snaggletooth shark teeth (Hemipristis serra), tiger shark teeth, and below them lots of lemon and requiem shark teeth.

Most of these bones and vertebrae are dugong (Metaxytherium floridanum) bones.  The two bones below are dolphin, and the one above that may be a fragment of a Gomphothere tooth.  A Gomphothere is an extinct elephant like mammal.

The bone in the center of the pic above is enlarged here.  It's a dugong ear bone, and apparently not very common.  Riley found this beauty in her sifter.

The two bones on the left are partial dolphin jaw bone fragments.  In person, you can easily see the slots that the teeth were placed.  This picture is not very clear.  The fossil to the right is the Gomphothere tooth fragment.

The fossils  in the upper left quarter of this picture are turtle shell fragments, and below that, some shells and internal molds of snails and clams.  The fossils in the upper right include the crocodile (Thecachampsa americana) scute that Cris found, and some croc teeth that Riley, Kyle and I found.  To the right of that is the meg tooth that Cris found.  The bottom half of the picture are the Native American artifacts that we found collectively, with the hammer stone to the left, some chert reject pieces (likely split when trying to manufacture points), and three pieces of pottery.  The bottom piece of pottery is old, but modern.  As both Cris and Kyle pointed out in the videos below, we were able to collect these artifacts because they were found on private property.  Incidentally, the hammer stone is a tool made from a chunk of dense limestone that is also packed with fossilized bivalves and other critters, so it's an artifact and fossil one one!

These fossils are from the late Miocene, about 8-9 million years old, and are from the Coosawhatchie Formation.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted from shoveling and sifting.  My back was in a ton of pain, and really reminded me of how out of shape I was.  We still had an hour and a half drive back to where we were staying, so, I was in a bit of a hurry to get out of there.

Cris and Kyle had some more work to do to close out their videos, so they did that while I cleaned up the fossils.  I accidentally scooped up Cris' meg into my container, not paying attention.  I didn't realize it until we returned from where we were staying.  I immediately texted Cris and apologized, and offered to ship it back to him, but he declined and told me to add it to our collection in our Florida riker mount.  I couldn't believe his generosity and humbly accepted his forgiveness.  I felt awful about the whole thing.  What the heck was I thinking?  Our entire collection is of stuff that we found, except for some stuff that we traded at the request of others that really wanted some of what we had.  Now, that isn't the case, and it troubles me.  I just hope it doesn't jeopardize our chances to book future trips.

Anyway, on to more good stuff for you guys to follow, the videos and YouTube Channels of both Cris and Kyle.  I hope you like them as much as I do.  They're fun, informative, and keep you hooked to the next one.  Please subscribe to their channels, and if you get a chance, contact them and book them.  I highly recommend it.  Please watch both videos, they each have some different stuff about our finds.  Also, please find and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.  You can contact them via Instagram to book a trip.

Cris' video:

Kyle's video: