This is a giant beaver incisor tooth found in Florida.
I found this fossil when I went on a fossil hunting expedition with paleontologist Mark Renz. I also got my fossil book written by him signed in person!
We were sifting some sand in the Peace River, near Arcadia. We had been there for a long time in blistering heat and we were tired and hungry. When I least expected it, I got it! I used a screen to filter sand out of large pebbles. It was just bigger than the screen holes!
It is clear that it is a large mammal incisor tooth. Before, I thought it was a capybara incisor. But now, I think it is a giant beaver.
I think this is a beaver because I compared the curves of the different teeth of the capybara and giant beaver. The giant beaver had more of a bigger tooth than the capybara. The curves in the beaver tooth matched that of a museum specimen too!
Giant beavers are prehistoric relatives of modern-day beavers. They lived around 1 million years ago. They ate river plants, cattail, and sedges. The Giant beaver went extinct because global warming after the Ice Age affected their lake habitats, leading to the demise of the species 10,000 years ago. This means that early humans arriving to Florida around 20,000 years ago coexisted with giant beavers for about 10,000 years!
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