Continue your field trip here..    The center of the room contains many cases filled with fossils and bone replicas. Scroll down to view the many exciting "Skeletons in our Closet..."     30-Million year-old Tortoises from Nebraska  These specimens are an extinct species of tortoise (Stylemys nebraskensis) collected over the past few years by Florida Museum of Natural History paleontologists and associates from Oligocene age sediments in western Nebraska. The smallest is a hatchling a few months old, and the largest is at least 20 years old. Turtles frequently preserve as fossils because of their durable shells. Smallest and largest specimens are loaned courtesy of Steve and Suzan Hutchens.   Rhino Block This slab was excavated during the turn of the 19th century from a famous 20-million-year old Miocene site in NW Nebraska, Agate Springs National Monument. It contains a rich concentratin of fossil rhino (Menoceras cooki) jaws and bones that accumulated in an ancient stream channel. Based on the amount of wear on the teeth and other features of the bones, this slab contains juveniles, mature adults, and older individuals representing a cross-section of ancient herd. They died together, probably during a single catastrophic even such as a flood. From the Vertebrate Paleontology collection.   Bony Fishes Rhacolepis sp., from the 70 million year old Cretaceous Santana locality, Brazil Fishes have hard skeletons that often preserve as flattened, carbonized impressions of their bones or scales. These specimens are from diverse fossil localities ranging in age from 100 to 50 million years old. They show exquisite preservation, mostly because they were fossilized rapidly without transport of the bones prior to burial. Original specimens and cast replicas from the Vertebrate Paleontology collection.   Three-toed Transitional Horse This 18-million-year-old Miocene full-grown adult horse, Parahippus leonensis, was collected from the Thomas farm fossil preserve in northern Florida. Since the 1930's, tens of thousands of individual Parahippus bones have been collected from this fossil site. Para-, "side"; -hippus, "horse which means side-toed horse, has three toes. Based on the shape of its teeth, paleontologists believe that Parahippus ate both leaves and grass and represents the evolutionary transition between primitive browsing leaf-eaters and advanced grazing horses like the modern day Equus. Composite reconstructed skeleton of fossil bones collected by the FLMNH.     Click here to learn more...  Back to Skeletons in our closet