Florida Pleistocene horse

[Bruce MacFadden]

I am pasting this email thread (with permission) from a teacher in Santa Cruz, who has a student who found a fossil horse tooth in Florida on vacation. See the picture attached to this forum post!

From: LeighAnn Work <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 8, 2016 9:39 AM
To: MacFadden,Bruce J
Subject: Great meeting you in SC- and a student’s fossil

Hi Bruce,
I enjoyed meeting you and working with you at the NGSS workshop last week, and I hope that you have (or had?) a good trip back to Florida.

Last Friday a student showed me a fossil that he found on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It sure looks like a tooth to me, but I am no expert. So, I told him that I would ask an expert. My pictures aren’t great and I realize as I see them on the computer that some are blurry, but I wonder if you could look at them and tell us what you think.

Thanks so much! Best, LeighAnn

LeighAnn Work, M.A. Ed.
Middle School Science Teacher
GATEWAY SCHOOL
126 Eucalyptus Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(831) 423-0341 ext. 313
http://www.gatewaysc.org
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On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 6:52 AM, MacFadden,Bruce J <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi LeighAnn–Very good to hear from you, and likewise. Your photos are perfectly fine. The tooth is an upper molar of a fossil horse Equus from the Ice Age, which spans from about 2 million to 10,000 years ago. It has rounded edges because it probably was rolled in water (stream or in the surf). Here is a photo of an extinct Equus horse from Florida in our museum.

Fossil Equus are common in Florida, so this is not unexpected. Would it be Ok with you if I post this communication on our myFOSSIl web site. It would be located at:

http://community.myfossil.org/forums/

We have lesson plans on fossil horses and a forum for K-12 teachers on myFOSSIL if you are interested.

Let me know if I can help you anymore! I am very excited that this is a fossil horse. This is the group that I study.

All the best, Bruce
————————————————————————————————
From: LeighAnn Work <[email protected]>
To: MacFadden,Bruce J
Subject: RE: Great meeting you in SC- and a student’s fossil

Hi Bruce,
How very interesting. My student will be really excited to learn this information. My colleague and I thought that it may be a horse, but I was reluctant to make that guess to the extinct horse expert! During my prep period today I will look at the myFOSSIL site. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly and for info. And, yes, I am fine with you posting this communication on the website.

Best, LeighAnn

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