Sharks Teeth

Peace River is known for its sharks teeth and other fossils from when Florida was under water. We've never been lucky finding sharks teeth on prior kayaking trips or beach walking. But on Tuesday we rented some sifters from the Thousand Trails Campground and walked out into the river. The river was shallow - only shin-deep - which makes it perfect for fossil-hunting. We were very excited to immediately start finding items:

• sharks teeth (a variety - mako, tiger, lemon, sand, and we're not exactly sure what else)
• a rib from a dugong (relative to the manatee)
• a lower tooth from a horse
• several mouth plates from stingrays
• pieces of turtle shells
• fossilized sand dollars and some other shells
  

I'm sure we found other fossils, but if we couldn't identify it, we put it back in the river. It was relaxing just being in the cool river digging and sifting, with the hot sun beginning to set.

So here's the funny part, I mentioned in the fall how I can't collect shells unless I'm heading home, right? Well, we're keeping the fossils. Ha! They can travel with us around the country since they're a special find for us. The only one that is weighty is the dugong rib.

Here's the horse tooth - if you look close you'll see the ridges on the crown of the tooth.






Several of the shark teeth surprised me by still being sharp, and the serrated edges were still obvious and not rubbed smooth from the sand and stones in the river. Even the enamel looked shiny.