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We took a spring trip to Florida in March and it started off on the right foot when we turned down the road to our motel and saw this street sign! Hopefully a good omen for things to come. Many sharks teeth were collected from the Gulf of Mexico's surf. The shorebirds, including this Willet, loved following us along, they looking for a snack and us looking for teeth. As much fun sifting shark's teeth in the surf is, my preferred objective was to slip off to Cookie Cutter Creek and collect micro matrix in hopes of finding a few teeth from Isistius brasiliensis, the cookie cutter shark. A picture of the creek show it is recovering from the dredging that took place a few years ago. So hopes of accomplishing my goal ran high. Success was not realized until returning home and processing some matrix. There it was, nestled between the grains of sand! Most of the micro matrix brought home will be given away to those who enjoy the dainty finds within it. Also found in the matrix was this vertebrae from a TINY mammal. Even smaller than the shark tooth. In addition to the creek hunt and beach combing, I did explore some land exposures looking to add new specimens to my large collection of Tamiami gastropods, corals and bivalves. I will burden you with just a few odd ones that I liked. First up is a weathered Strombus with a coral colony and an oyster using it as home. Staying with the same theme, here is a Nassarius overwhelmed by the attachment of barnicles. The next gastropod, Melongena subcoronata also came as a "twofer". When it came to cleaning this shell up, I was surprised that it had an occupant, and it wasn't a hermit crab! And no I did not take the bug home. While collecting fossil shells, I came across this nice Mako tooth, I believe Carcharodon hastalis is correct. It was a pleasant surprise. This year I had the privilege of fossilin with a few friends, one being a forum member, @Shellseeker. I so enjoy hoofing it through the wild Floridian forest to get to out of the way locations. And the selected location paid off! The hunt was once again the highlight of my trip! Plenty of nice fossils were found but unfortunately, I somehow misplaced, or lost as my wife always points out, the best of my finds. If or WHEN they are located, I will add to this trip report. In the mean time, my hunting partners gifted these gems to me. Tapir tooth And finally this prize from Jack. Thanks so much! I mistakenly thought these teeth were silky shark. @Al Dente said "Nice finds. These teeth are Negaprion." The only flaw in this fossil foray was loosing one of our members in the woods as we left for home. Jack, did you ever find him or is he still out there? LOL We did head north for a few days to the Crystal Springs/ Yankeetown area for fossilin and Manatee watching. The /Crystal River, being spring fed stays warm in the winter months and attract Manatees fleeing the cold Gulf of Mexico water. A photo of the Crystal River. And a photo of us snorkeling with Manatee! Echinoids are what the area is known for. The most common is the urchin, Eupatagus. This "double" was my favorite! A much smaller, unidentified urchin. We took a few hours on our return trip to visit Honeymoon Bay in search of geodized coral. Success was had, but a friend is prepping the coral. I will show it off later. It is special. As we trekked south, a stop was made at Norman Love's Confections in Sarasota hoping to top the trip off with a special desert like Jack gave to wifey for Valentines Day (see his post). It is called the "Chocolate Bomb". Five different chocolates and a special "cherry" on top. Jack, you split yours with your wife. I was thinking of my wife and ordered two bombs so she wouldn't have to share with me. After such a scrumptious dessert, I was ready to vegitate and what better way to accomplish this than taking in the evening's sunset. Hope you enjoyed our trip.

Last month in an effort to relieve some of the late summer boredom, I went to Yankeetown to search the spoil islands at the mouth of the river. I was specifically looking for limestone cobbles that might be protecting examples of the large Eocene sand dollar Periarchus floridanus. I've worked these islands a number of times before so my expectations were not high, but I had hoped the high tides since my last visit might have mixed things up a bit. I did find a couple cobbles with edges of sand dollars showing, but with obvious damage. Since I have nothing but extra time on my hands, I took them home and cleaned them up. I think they're still interesting, but not display pieces. Last week after Hurricane Ian, I drove out to Yankeetown again since that section of coast was spared any damage. This time I wanted to look at a chain of larger spoil islands at the mouth of the canal which is about 2 miles south of the mouth of the Withlacoochee. I had never tried there because of the long kayak trip. I walked the perimeter of three of the closest islands and was surprised at the lack of any echinoids at all. Very different from the islands at the mouth of the Withlacoochee. After 2 1/2 hours of searching, I found 1 cobble with a good indication. After only a couple hours of cleanup, I was very happy with how this guy worked out. I'll not be returning to those islands again, but this guy made the whole trip worthwhile.

While I was looking for sea biscuits in Yankeetown, I found this. At first I thought it was an actual peanut. Lol I tried doing some research on it but can't really find that much information about what it actually is. So I'm hoping y'all will have some more suggestions or details. The closest I've found online is it being a double concretion. It's relatively small compared to similar ones I've found online. It's a little over 3cm long and less than 2cm wide. Not magnetic. Thank you for any and all help!

Last week I had the opportunity to be in Florida so I made my way out to the Withlacoochee bay trail for a little while to look for some loose echnoids. I didn't get any pictures of the finds in situ... poor planning on my part. Here is everything after I got home. They still need to be cleaned up. I believe I saw people soaked them in vinegar and gently use a toothbrush to get the sand and miscellaneous debris off? I also found the tiny 'clam' shell amongst the loose limestone chunks where where I found the echnoids, not sure if it is modern or fossil to be honest. The large mass of debris in the upper left was attached to one of the echnoids I had picked up. It must have broken loose during the ride home. I will try breaking it down to see if there is anything of interest in it. I think the 2 on the right closest to the cube are a different species since they are flatter than others.

Although the Peace River stayed diggable through the end of June this year, I made my last trip on the 20th and was looking forward to the clear spring fed waters of the Santa Fe the following week. Heavy rains in North Florida and Georgia spoiled that plan by sending the Santa Fe to flood stage. I hadn't been to the Yankeetown spoil islands in several months and I always enjoy spending a few hours there. I intended to do a quick surface scan for the smaller less common echinoids, but was primarily looking for limestone cobbles that contained the large sand dollar Periarchus floridanus. This large thin echinoid doesn't survive erosion from the limestone like many of the smaller ones found here. It must remain protected within the limestone cobbles which, in a perfect world, would display just the edge of the undamaged sand dollar. Prepping is a relatively simple process since the echinoid test is slightly harder than the soft Ocala limestone. I was lucky to find 4 possible specimens and 3 turned out very decently. Here is a picture of the first cobble that I found right at the water line followed by the after prep picture. After Tropical Storm Elsa passes I'll make a return trip to these islands to repeat the search since high tides this week and the storm surge will mix things up a bit. It's always a nice getaway when high water levels make rive hunting difficult.

The winter of 2018-2019 was rough on folks from Minnesota, people who normally judge their self esteem on surviving mother nature's cold and snowy fury. So when the time came to depart for my snowbird trip to Florida, I could not have been more excited to go. Here is the local landscape as we left. Then on arrival to the Sunshine State. What a stark contrast. I could never give up my winters for this , as nice as it is to visit. Hunting for fossil treasures in Florida is usually limited to a single day per trip for me. But this time I was blessed with three outstanding excursion from three wonderful members of the forum, JCBShark (alias Jeff), Shellseeker, (alias Jack), and Sacha, (alias John). Unfortunately my hopes for finding fossils were dashed due to high water, but my friends were nice enough to attempt to conquer mother nature and we pressed on. I will let you decide if they were successful. Here were the participants for Day 1, a trip on foot to get to some special spots. As can be seen, it was NOT an easy hike. Here was Day 2. Kayaking up the creek for a few miles was not easy due to high water. But going back was a very peaceful float, as these pictures of Jack show!! Something needed after an old man (me, not Jack) paddles like he did and then shovels gravel all day!

Hey guys! Here's something a little different from me... Echinoid Hunting! This was an extremely fun and productive fossil hunt, finding some of the oldest fossils Florida has to offer. In this video you even get a tour of my fossil-filled vehicle, which could have been a whole video in itself hahaha! You may also notice a quality change. We got some sweet new gear! Give the video a watch if you're interested and have some time!

In an effort to do something while the Peace and the Santa Fe decline from flood stage, I went back to Yankeetown to look for echinoids without any real expectations. Tide was low and the wind was strong out of the east so the water level was very low. Screening was pretty much out of the question without serious back strain, so I spent a few hours on hands and knees looking between all the footprints for something that holiday week hunters may have missed. I brought home nice examples of several of the more common species including Eupatagus antillarium ( only 5 examples which, I think, shows extraordinary self control) one of which was a nice matrix specimen, several Neolaganum durami (one pictured and one in matrix), 1 small Rhyncholampas ericsoni, 1 nice Agassizia clevei and best of all 1 Eupatagus ocalanus (still to be verified) in the bottom left of the picture. Sorry the picture isn't the best, but I can't figure out how to improve the contrast to how the detail. I'm pretty new to this echinoid stuff, really only interested since last years contributions to the invertebrate collection at UF. Posts like this one are probably pretty basic to most forum members, but I'm feeling pretty chuffed about the variety of species that can be found in Florida. It's nice to have access to echinoid sites during high river water levels too.

I took a quick trip to Yankeetown, FL this week because, although I've been there a number of times, it is one of the few locations I know of that isn't under water this year. I screen sifted for a couple hours and got some nice examples of echinoids already in my collection. I'm paying more attention to these sand dollars and sea biscuits since the variety in my collection is growing and my contribution to the Univ. of FL Museum really piqued my interest. I was hoping I could get proper species names for the specimens in the following photos. These would be from Ocala Limestone, Inglis Formation. First the small sand dollar. These are quite common, in good condition and rarely larger than the larger on shown. Next is the small sea biscuit. I think there are 2 different species in the picture, but the more oval one is probably in to poor condition to ID. The other inflated obloid ones are not that common and are what I'm primarily hunting for when I go back to these islands with the exception of the still allusive sea urchin. I appreciate the help. Thanks for your time.

As I eluded to in a separate posting, my wife and I recently joined the FPS (Florida Paleontological Society) and joined them for their fall field trip and meeting in the High Springs area of north central Florida. It was a 320 mile drive (one way) but well worth the effort. It also gave us lots of time to listen to a stash of podcasts to pass the time on the long drive. During the field trip to Haile Quarry I found my first Eupatagus antillarum (on my fossil bucket list for a few years) and several other nice smaller echinoids. During the FPS meeting in the evening Jack (Shellseeker) introduced me to Gunther Lobisch who has a passion (and accumulated knowledge base) for echinoids. I mentioned to him about my nascent interest in Florida echinoids. I first learned about Eupatagus antillarum (Florida's long-time "almost" state fossil which is still pending approval) a few years back. Apparently, state legislature also does things on a geological time scale and at the present Florida still does not have a state fossil. I don't remember what led me there but somehow I happened upon a YouTube video of a couple of guys who took kayaks out to the spoil pile islands just west of the small town of Yankeetown along the Gulf Coast of Florida (just north of Crystal River). They were looking for (and found) a number of these fossilized spatangoid (irregular) urchins. That original video is no longer available on YouTube but one of the guys who posted it (and who goes by the handle "Snot Otter") has a newer replacement video showing collecting on the spoil pile islands: I had mentioned to Gunther that it was on my fossil bucket list to one day where to launch some kayaks or a canoe to be able to reach these spoil pile islands in order to go hunting for the echinoids found there. Gunther replied that echinoids could be gathered along the canal itself without having to venture out to the spoil piles. This was all I needed to hatch a plan. We were up in the High Springs/Alachua area and would pass right by Yankeetown on the way home--if you ignore the one hour detour that it would take to head west. My wife was up for the idea so on Sunday (the day after the FPS meeting) we checked out of our hotel and set the car's navigation system at an address nearby where I wanted to go. In a little over an hour we were driving through the little town of Inglis and crossed over the canal itself that runs from Lake Rousseau to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the southern edge of the canal is a small road called the Withlacoochee Bay Trail. There are a few parking areas along the road, an equestrian trail, some paved walking paths, and areas where people had stopped to try their luck with some fishing poles. Along most of the canal length there is a ridge mound made up of the dredging material that was removed from the canal back in the 1930s. In most places this ridge was covered with grasses and trees but we did spot an area where the limestone that made up this ridge was visible along the surface. It was packed hard and weathered and the color was more blackish gray than white due to the mildewy covering. We walked this area for a few minutes and turned up a larger echinoid (still embedded in a coating of limestone but identifiable by shape) and a smaller grape-sized echinoid that had a clean surface but also a few cracks. This was better luck than we had had at the Haile Quarry the day before (or at least quicker finds). We got back in the car and continued down the road. Most of the ridge was covered by grasses with some scattered bushes and trees. In a little while we got to an area where the trees were taller and more dense. It looked like the undergrowth was light limited in these areas and I thought that it might be possible to search under the trees in areas where the soil was eroded away enough to uncover some of the underlying limestone rocks. This was the same sort of areas I looked for while surface hunting the Mazon Creek area for nodules so I wanted to see if my gained knowledge in that environment would cross over to this new area. In just a few minutes of looking around under the trees I spotted a few nice echinoids hiding at the surface. I decided that I needed to return to the car to tell Tammy and to get some bug spray as the mosquitoes were quite dense (and hungry) under the canopy. The flying insect density it seems was not being mitigated enough by the copious number of spider webs stretched between branches. More than once I planted my face directly in a Spinybacked Orbweaver (crab spider) or Golden Orbweaver web--it kinda felt like Halloween haunted house display a week early. -Ken