Fossils & Paleontology – Discover Natural History

Rare, Beautiful & Fascinating: 100 Years @FloridaMuseum

Our online exhibit features some of the most impressive fossil specimens from our collections, including this ancient apex predator.

close up on the bottom of a shark jaw filled with huge triangular black teeth as if in a museum exhibit

Online Resource

Florida Vertebrate Fossil Species & Sites

Explore the rich fossil record of Florida's vertebrate animals and the fossil sites where they are found.

Hand holding a small pick tool brushes away dirt near partly buried fossil bones.

Online Resource

Fossil Horses

Explore the rich fossil record of horses and their history in North America going back at least 55 million years.

Illustration of modern horse compared to a horse ancestor showing size and shape difference.

Browse Paleontology Guides & Online Exhibits

View all Browse Paleontology Guides & Online Exhibits

doughnut-shaped example of cave pearls

Articles & News

Get to know Florida’s fossil pearls

Have you ever wondered where these iconic minerals come from, what makes a pearl a true pearl, and how a pearl can become a fossil?

a underwater and riverside painting of Florida's Pleistocene with animals swimming and standing along the rivers edge

Exhibit Spotlight

Florida Fossils exhibit paintings

Explore the art and identification keys for the paintings in our Florida Fossils exhibit, with bonus species highlights and fossil specimens.

This sculpture of Uintatherium one of five sculptures in the “Wondrous Creatures” showcase.

Online Exhibit

Wondrous Creatures

Where Science and Art Intersect, featuring Ariel Bowman. Wondrous Creatures explores wonder as an inspiration and a bridge between art and science.

still from a video showing a person holding a Ice Age tusk, photographed underwater

Video Story

Exploring north Florida rivers for ice age tusks

Florida Museum scientists demonstrate and explain the process of making specimen cast from mammoth and mastodon fossils found underwater in northwest Florida.

Paleontology Museum Collections

View all Paleontology Museum Collections

A long fossil jaw with a set of heavy molars in place and a long curved tusk protruding from the front end of it.

Museum Collection

Vertebrate Paleontology

These collections provide the most complete basis available for study of Cenozoic vertebrate life and evolution in the eastern United States.

Fossilized crab partially exposed from tan stone with a UF specimen number written on one claw.

Museum Collection

Invertebrate Paleontology

This collection includes fossil invertebrates from the last 65 million years collected from Florida, the southeastern U.S., and the circum-Caribbean

Close up of two Sabal palm fossils in tan stone with the palm frond shapes a deeper reddish brown.

Museum Collection

Paleobotany & Palynology

With approximately 250,000 specimens, this collection is international in scope, ranging from the Proterozoic to the Pleistocene.