Live Lab
A working lab offered visitors a behind the scenes access speak with paleontology curators, collections managers, students and volunteers! They enjoyed discovering firsthand what life as a scientist is like, from cleaning and rebuilding fossils to sorting tiny bones from sediment and creating digital reconstructions. Each scientist brought a unique research interest, so the live lab work was different with every visit!

Tales from the Collections
More than 100 real fossils from the museum’s vertebrate paleontology, invertebrate paleontology and paleobotany collections were on display. We got to talk about the differences among these fields and take a glimpse at never-before-displayed fossils, casts and replicas, including a life-size Triceratops and Albertosaurus!

From the Field
Ever wonder what researchers and fossil hunters do while out in the field or in the collections? Our scientists livestreamed events right from the field! Visitors were able to ask questions, see the cool specimens they were uncovering and watch how scientists dig into the past.

Art and Science
Guests let out their inner artists in a paleoart interactive while drawing and tracing prehistoric life to take home. A magnified display provided an up-close look at tiny fossils, and a comment wall gave visitors an opportunity to share their stories.

• The museum’s invertebrate paleontology collection features specimens from more than 12,500 sites worldwide. This group includes animals like mollusks, corals and arthropods.
• The entire invertebrate paleontology collection, both catalogued and uncatalogued, is estimated to house around 7.5 million specimens.
• At 500 million years old, fossils from the Burgess Shale are the oldest displayed in the exhibit – and some of the earliest life on Earth! This unique rock deposit is in Canada and famous for containing some of the earliest preservation of soft tissue in fossils.
• Sharks don’t usually leave behind complete fossil skeletons like other animals because their skeletons are mostly made up of cartilage, the material that’s in human ears and noses, and rarely fossilizes.
• Shark teeth, invertebrate and plant fossils can be found throughout the state and don’t require a special permit to keep as part of a collection. However, a Florida Fossil Permit is required to collect other vertebrate fossils on state lands, which include all navigable waterways, and offshore waters.
• Scientists use CT scanning technology to see and create 3D models of the inside of amber and fossils without irreversibly damaging them.
• North and South America were separated by an ocean until about 3.5 million years ago, when the formation of the Panama land bridge led to changes in the distribution of ancient life.
• Fossil molds and casts are 3D impressions of an organism that are typically buried in sediment and do not contain the organism’s actual remains.