FLMNH Vertebrate Fossil Collections
The Florida Museum maintains five separate fossil vertebrate collections. Their specimens derive mainly from the Cenozoic Era (last 65 million years), with more than 80% coming from about 1000 localities in Florida. Other major contributing regions are islands in the Caribbean Basin, Central and South America, and intermontaine basins of Wyoming and Montana. Combined, the collections total about 750,000 specimens, of which more than 415,000 are catalogued and on a searchable computer database. Holotypes number about 200 specimens.
The primary and largest of our collections consists of specimens recovered by Florida Museum of Natural History staff, graduate students, and volunteers and those donated to the museum. This collection is referred to as the UF collection. The other vertebrate fossil collections are the former collection of the Florida Geological Survey, portions of the Timberlane Research Organization collection, and the UF Department of Zoology Fossil Bird Collection (assembled by the late Professor Pierce Brodkorb). Each of these collections is maintained in a separate catalog, under the acronyms UF/FGS, UF/TRO, and UF/PB, respectively. The fifth collection (UF/IGM) is maintained for specimens collected in Colombia by joint expeditions of personnel from the Florida Museum of Natural History, the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Geologico-Mineras (Bogota, Colombia), and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Following their preparation, casting, study, and publication, the original fossils will be housed in Bogota and casts will be stored in Gainesville.
The FLMNH collections provide the most complete basis available for study of Cenozoic vertebrate life and evolution in the eastern United States and the circum-Caribbean Basin area.
19th Annual Thomas Farm Dig - Spring 2010
Hummingbird Challenge VI
April 6-11, 2010
Please join Dave Steadman, Erika Simons, and other Museum scientists for our 19th annual fossil dig at Thomas Farm (45 miles NW of Gainesville). The dig will take place from Tuesday through Sunday, April 6 to 11, 2010.
We will excavate 18 million year old fossils of extinct alligators, tortoises, freshwater turtles, three-toed horses, rhinos, camels, deer, and bear-dogs. We also will find and learn about the tiny fossils of birds, bats, rodents, frogs, lizards, snakes, etc. that far outnumber the large ones.
The number of participants is limited to 16 per day. You can sign up for any two or more nights. The price includes:- all meals (tasty!) from when you arrive until you depart
- full access to our facilities (picnic shelter, kitchen, shower, campground, nature trail)
- short evening lectures by museum scientists about their latest research projects
- guided nature walks around our precious 40 acres
- a grand time with old and new friends as we excavate one of North America’s richest fossil sites
To reserve a place for the 2010 fossil dig at Thomas Farm, please fill out the registration form, enclose a check, and mail it to Dave at the address on the form.
TWO NEW LARGE MAMMALS FOR ICE-AGE FLORIDA
In two separate scientific papers, FLMNH paleontologist Richard Hulbert and colleagues have reported the first two new large mammals from the late Pleistocene Epoch (the last 120,000 years) to be discovered in Florida in almost 50 years. Thanks to its many late Pleistocene fossil sites found throughout the state, the mammals of “Ice Age” Florida are very well known. The state’s ancient fauna included such familiar species as the Columbian mammoth, the American mastodon, the dire wolf, and the sabertoothed cat as well as extinct species of bison, horse, llama, tapir, bear, armadillo, ground sloths, and many others. While new finds of the less well known small animals of this time are still routine, and new discoveries from older periods are also made on a regular basis, there have been no newly discovered large mammals from the late Pleistocene of Florida since 1965, according to Hulbert. The newly found species are the giant short-faced bear (scientific name Arctodus simus) and collared peccary (Pecari sp.).
The giant short-faced bear was larger than any living bear,and had a wide range from Alaska to Mexico, and east to Virginia and Pennsylvania. But the species was not previously known from the extreme southeastern United States, with no records from the Carolinas, Georgia, or Florida. That changed when Mike and Seina Searle of Lutz, Florida, discovered a beautifully preserved set of large bear teeth while scuba diving and fossil collecting in the Rainbow River near Dunnellon. As experienced collectors, the Searles quickly realized that their find differed from the common bears found as fossils in Florida. They donated the specimen to the Florida Museum of Natural History, along with a sample of the other species found with it. Once the Searles’s specimen came to light, others were found including additional teeth and limb bones from the bed of Lake Rousseau in western Marion County and three teeth from a coquina and sand quarry in St. Lucie County on Florida’s east coast. These fossils were donated to the FLMNH by Andreas Kerner, Barbara Fite, Paul Roth,and Brenda Farlow. The identification of the Florida fossils as the giant short-faced bear was confirmed in a report published in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Paleontology that was authored by fossil bear expert Blaine Schubert of East Tennessee State University, FLMNH paleontologists Hulbert and Bruce MacFadden, and M. and S. Searle.
Teeth of the giant short-faced bear found in the Rainbow River, Marion County, Florida by M. and S. Searle.
The second newly found Ice-Age mammal is a peccary (also called javalinas). While members of this pig-like family have long been known from Pleistocene fossils found in Florida, they all belong to one of two extinct types of peccaries. A partial lower jaw with four teeth of a third type of peccary was found along with fossils of late Pleistocene animals by Andreas Kerner of Orlando at a submerged locality in the Peace River near Nocatee in De Soto County, southwestern Florida. Like the Searles, Kerner is an experienced fossil collector and soon realized he had found something different from the fossil peccaries he knew once lived in Florida. This was confirmed by Hulbert when he was shown the specimen, which was then donated by Kerner to the FLMNH along with a sample of other fossils from the same site. A second specimen of the new type of peccary, also from the Peace River, but from near Brownville, was found and donated to the FLMNH by David Wright, while a third specimen was found in the bed of the Suwannee River in northern Florida. The three specimens were described and identified in an article published December 2009 in the Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin by Hulbert, Kerner, and Gary Morgan of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. They determined that the specimens belong to a collared peccary. But the fossils are not complete enough to determine if they are the same species as the living collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) which lives today from the southwestern United States down through South America or if they are an extinct close relative of the living species. Fossils of collared peccaries had not been previously known from the United States, with the closed find being in Guatemala.
Jaw of the collared peccary found in the Peace River, De Soto County, Florida by A. Kerner.
These two new discoveries highlight several important aspects of paleontology in Florida. First, all of the finds were made by avocational paleontologists, not professionals. This group has long played a very important role in finding new fossil sites and helping us learn about the animals that once lived in our state. And this continues to be true. Second, the collecting by the Searles in the Rainbow River and by Kerner and Wright in the Peace River was done legally with permits issued by the Program of Vertebrate Paleontology. These permits allow private individuals to collect vertebrate fossils in Florida’s rivers. As these discoveries prove, significant discoveries can still be made. But it is important that private fossil collectors become knowledgeable about what they find, and seek out experts when they can not identify a specimen. They may have found something new.
REFERENCES
Hulbert, R. C., G. S. Morgan, and A. Kerner. 2009. Collared peccary (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Tayassuidae, Pecari) from the late Pleistocene of Florida; pp. 543-555 in L. B. Albright III (ed.), Papers on Geology, Vertebrate Paleontology, and Biostratigraphy in Honor of Michael O. Woodburne. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 65. Flagstaff, Arizona.
Schubert, B. W., R. C. Hulbert, B. J. MacFadden, M. Searle, and S. Searle. 2010. Giant short-faced bears (Arctodus simus) in Pleistocene Florida USA, a substantial range extension. Journal of Paleontology 84(1):79-87.
Report on 2009 Volunteer Fossil Dig at Thomas Farm
Click on above link for text and images of our latest volunteer fossil dig.