it's currently 95 degrees outside there are more bugs than i can count there's an incoming
thunderstorm and yet i could not think of anywhere else i'd rather be than right here fossil hunting
with you guys i've got most of my gear loaded up in this wheel barrel we've got about a mile left
in the wheelbarrow and then i'm gonna have to carry it all out by hand for another mile
but after that i'll be in the river finding some really cool fossils to show you guys if any of you
have ever gotten the impression that what i do is easy let me just correct that impression right now
this is not easy and while i still have quite a bit of this left to do i thought i might let you
guys enjoy some of the more relaxing bits of this with some of the beautiful scenery and animals
you can see on these fossil hunts but i still have to get through all of this
look at those little guys i've managed to make it to the river without completely exhausting myself
as you guys can see the visibility is really poor today so what i'm going to have to end
up doing is wait at each bend for at least 30 minutes to see if a gator surfaces and if no
gator surfaces we're good to dive it it's really going to slow down how much i can dive today
but if we get lucky i know this area can be really good i've been fossil hunting in florida since
i could hold a shovel and on days like this the biggest thing you worry about are gators
and i can tell you you never get used to seeing them underwater they can be in
any one of these bends under any one of these fallen logs but that's what you have to deal with
the fossil guardians the treasure guardians down here and i will deal with gators in order to find
some incredible fossils and go to beautiful places like this here comes the part where
things get interesting i'm not going to be able to record going in because i really need to focus but
i'm going to dive this deep hole and if there's something in there i'll make sure to show you guys
well apparently during that time we were diving it started raining
it's not going to stop me from continuing to fossil hunt but man it is wild out here
got a couple cool things but not enough to satisfy me so let's keep looking
so the river's eroded a whole area over here loaded with bone so i just found this little
piece there's tons of turtle shell i'm gonna try to fan up a section of it and then i'll show you
what kind of bone we can find in a little section of river like this when it erodes a new area
so i'm really excited it's got the potential for something else really nice in there
and i just got to get back underwater
that is an incredible mastodon tooth the thing is huge that's gotta be one of the biggest baddest
ones i've found i'm freaking out a little bit that's pretty amazing oh look at the wear right
here that is so cool i don't know guys you don't know how awesome this tooth is it is so heavy too
i don't think i can top that today but there might be something else in there i don't know
i'm a little bit cold even though it was 95 degrees earlier i've been doing this for a while but
that is so worth it that is so freaking cool i could not get back in the water without telling
you guys more about this incredible fossil so this tooth yes a single tooth belongs
to an extinct american mastodon they're one of my favorite extinct ice age fossils to find out here
and they're really unique being that they are the first animal recognized as extinct by science and
that mainly owes to their incredibly unique large conical shaped teeth so no other living animal has
teeth that are this large with this type of enamel cap elephant teeth do get as big and even bigger
but they were grazers so they have enamel plates and a smooth chewing surface for chewing down grass
but this is a really incredible fossil i don't know how we're going to top it off today
but i will definitely try and i am very happy that i came out today despite the weather
despite the murky river and despite all the bugs really awesome fossil hunt really awesome fossil
the rain's coming down again and that's my cue to get back underwater
not a bad washout laying on top of my fingers you guys can see those two alligator scutes
and that massive awesome alligator tooth in the middle of my hand we've got two giant armadillo
scutes and then some other cool bones like that unfused vertebrae some mastodon enamel really
really good stuff and then i'm about to show you guys literally a pile of bones starting over here
we've got these three beautiful giant armadillo scutes they're called osteoderms which means bony
skin in latin and you guys can see why this animal would have had hundreds of these to protect it and
it would have been a couple hundred pounds imagine armadillo that weighed a couple hundred pounds
really cool finds we've got our gator material this is a big gator vertebrae from a ten footer
some more osteoderms some gator scoots that one in that one a wicked tooth
a really nice extinct ice age horse tooth you know your normal broken mastodon teeth
and an unfused vertebrae which is really cool so this would have been from a juvenile this would be
like a cap to the vertebrae and when they become adults this fuses so this poor individual died
when it was just a juvenile but for the reason i come out here and the best find of the day
was this unbelievable mastodon tooth we got a nice bone bed as you guys can see
all this different bone beneath it including that section of jaw and then we found a couple broken
pieces of mastodon root right there but that is going to be hard to beat really incredible fine
and really a trip maker and as always guys thank you so much for joining me today on this adventure
this is my happy place and the fact that you guys like it too means so much to me if you did
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we will keep on bringing you guys these awesome videos and until then keep on digging science