Family on Florida Beach Vacation Finds Strange Bones on Longboat Key
A set of bones found on the beach by a Texas woman and her children while on their Florida beach vacation could be a deep-sea snake or an eel, a taxidermist told the family.
However, an archaeologist told Tiffany Robinson, who was on a Florida beach vacation in the Longboat Key area, that the fossil might be that of a large fish.
Ms. Robinson has her own opinion about what the skeleton with a large head and sharp, daggerlike fins could have been.
She says, “It looks like a dinosaur.”
The remains mystified mammal researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota and professors at the University of South Florida.
“I’m more baffled that the specialists, the people who should know what it is, have no idea what it is,” said Robinson, a Dallas native who is on a Florida beach vacation with her family.
When the family spotted the bones, their mother turned the find into a paleontology lesson. The family took the remains back to their condo and the children did Internet research, making their Florida beach vacation an educational experience.
When they could not identify the remains online, the family shopped the bones around to experts, who suggested it could be a reptile or a giant grouper.
Whatever the skeleton is, Robinson said she will ship it back to Dallas before the family’s Florida beach vacation ends next week. Her 8-year-old son, Kyle, plans to hang the strange remains in his room.
“But I told the kids that if it is something that has never been discovered before, we’ve got to share it with the world,” Robinson said.