Dinosaurs never made it to the land of sunshine and grapefruit. When the massive creatures reached their peak more than 60 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era’s Jurassic Period, Florida was one great swimming pool. And it remained submerged for millions of years after the last dinosaur vanished.
Although the brontosaur and tyrannosaur didn’t leave their mark on the ancient Florida landscape, a variety of giant mammals did. Mastodons, mammoths, giant ground sloths and bison roamed the peninsula during the Pleistocene Era, and ancient whales, sharks and manatees swam the inland and coastal waters.
Fossil hounds can view skeletal remains and reproductions of three-toed horses and other ancient creatures in several of Florida’s science and history museums. Or, they can join a club to dig for remains themselves. Here’s a look at the possibilities:
— The Florida Fossil Hunters Club, based in Orlando, often arranges behind-the-scenes tours of the geological laboratories of area museums, says Jim Radz, one of the club’s charter members. The club also takes field trips to local shell pits and phosphate mines to dig for fossils.
Hunting for old bones is a hobby that attracts a wide range of people. The Florida Fossil Hunters membership even includes quite a few children, Radz says.
For more information about the club, call Radz at 1-407-788-9006.
— The Southeast’s largest natural history museum is about 90 miles northwest of Orlando – the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.
The museum’s fossil study center features high-tech, touch-screen computers, as well as plenty of skeletons from such ancient creatures as miniature deer, giant land tortoise, crocodile and saber-toothed cats.
The Object Gallery, which is filled with samples of bones from hundreds of creatures, is designed to aid visitors in identifying a bone or a fossil they may have found.
Admission to the museum is free; museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. The museum is on the University of Florida campus, at the corner of Newell Drive and Museum Road.
— On permanent display at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee are full-size reproductions of a mastodon and a giant armadillo called a glyptodont. Related exhibits include a reconstructed paleo-Indian work site, reflecting a period about 12,000 years ago, and an interactive exhibit on sea-level changes and Florida’s coastline.
The Museum of Florida History, 500 S. Bronough St., is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 4:30 p.m. Sundays. Admission is free.
— All of the fossils at the Mulberry Phosphate Museum were found within 50 miles of Mulberry, which is about 10 miles west of Bartow in Polk County. Prehistoric fossils and remains from such creatures as woolly mammoths, horses and rhinoceroses are on display. Also on exhibit are full-size statues of a giant sloth and an armadillo. But the fossilized skeleton of a 10-million-year-old baleen whale is the museum’s piece de resistance.
The Phosphate Museum, 101 SE First St. (directly behind Mulberry City Hall on the corner of U.S. Highways 60 and 37), is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Admission is free.
— Most of the fossils housed at the Orlando Science Center are in the Discovery Center, where visitors can look through drawers containing samples of typical Florida fossils, such as prehistoric whales and manatees.
The Orlando museum is at 810 E. Rollins St. in Loch Haven Park. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $6.50 for adults and $5.50 for children and senior citizens.
— A 13-foot-tall giant ground sloth dominates the Prehistory of Florida wing at Daytona Beach’s Museum of Arts and Sciences. Museum guests also can poke through the fossil-filled drawers on the Wall of Discovery.
The Daytona Beach museum, at 1040 Museum Blvd., is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Admission is $3 for adults and $1 for children and students. Museum admission is free every Friday.
— If you’re simply dying to see a dinosaur, an allosaurus – a flesh-eating dinosaur that lived in the late Jurassic Period – has found its way to the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville.
The creature’s skeleton is an impressive sight, says Anna Dooley, the museum’s public relations coordinator. It stands 9 feet tall and stretches 28 feet long. The skeleton, which is a permanent display, contains more than 400 fossilized bones and was excavated in Utah.
The Jacksonville museum also is featuring a new show in the adjoining planetarium, Where Did They Go, a film about the sudden demise of the dinosaurs. The show can be seen daily throughout the summer.
Jacksonville’s Museum of Science and History is at 1025 Gulf Life Drive on the River Walk. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and 1 to 6 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children 12 and under, and $4 for seniors.
