Product Description
This is a collection of 12 vertebrate fossils plus a large group of ray mouthcrusher teeth, collected over several years from the phosphate mines in the Bone Valley Formation, decades ago when it was legal to enter the area. For at last 30 years, the mines have forbid entry by fossil collectors. There are numerous teeth from rays, some Megalodon shark teeth, a variety of whale vertebrae, and some other unidentified bones. This would be a perfect study collection for class or clubs or, an ideal collection to make gifts or jewelry from with the many unique fossils that are included in this group. There are some really cool fossils in this group! All fossils are exactly as they were collected. Bone Valley offers a highly unique formation to produce fossils with colors that are not seen ANYWHERE else on the planet!
From the middle Miocene, 16 million years ago to the earliest Pliocene, about 4.5 million years ago, no other region in North America can claim a more varied and richer wealth of important vertebrate fossil finds than from the famous BONE VALLEY region in the phosphate mining district of Central Florida. During this time, thick forests and grassy plains covered a stubby peninsula that only went as far south to what is now Polk County. If you were to visit this area at that time, you would find six-foot tortoises, shovel-tusked mastodons, hornless rhinos, humpless camels, iguanas, gila monsters, and 30-foot crocodiles. The warm waters surrounding the area were filled with a rich variety of life as well, including long-beaked dolphins, bony fish, rays, sea cows and sharks including the notorious and now extinct giant killer shark, megalodon.
Bone Valley fossils are rare and highly-priced specimens. Due to the unique geological characteristics of the phosphate-rich region, most of the fossils are beautifully preserved with amazing detail and color. Unlike the majority of southeastern U.S. fossils retrieved from rivers and streams, Bone Valley specimens are found in dry earth and are not stained with the typical cruddy black and brown muck from rivers. Because Bone Valley fossils comprise so much variety of both ancient marine and terrestrial creatures, along with their unique and rare beauty of preservation, specimens from this locality are very rare and of great value to any fossil collection.