Mulberry Phosphate Museum

The Mulberry Phosphate Museum in Mulberry Florida, we had no idea of what to expect when we saw this museum but we figured we would give it a try. They have exhibits in three different small buildings, the first tells the history of phosphate mining in Florida. A lot of stuff about how it was formed and it's many uses, but our favorite building was the Fossil displays. When mining the phosphate they used large drag line buckets to dig down to it about 30 feet below the surface, a side effect of the digging was finding prehistoric fossils which many amateur paleontologist in the area recovered. Now a days with all the modernization of the mining procedure they don't allow anyone on the property and nobody really knows how many fossils are being destroyed.

When you see this in the parking lot, you'll know you're in the right place.

This was the predecessor to the Manatee, this was a small one and it was twice the size of a manatee today.

 Baby Whale, the head is at the left and the tail was destroyed by the steam shovel.

 Land turtle

Mastodon

A saltwater crocodile,  from the skull size it would have been close to 30 feet long.  This is a cast model the original is in the Smithsonian.

All of these fossils were found within a few miles of the museum, the whale was found just a couple blocks away.