Ice Age giant is unearthed

Bones thought to be one of the giant ground sloths that roamed Florida's dry savannas in the Ice Age were found in Hendry County during Everglades restoration work.

Rich Bartlett was skeptical when he got the call about his excavation crew digging up a chunk of jawbone the size of a dog during an Everglades construction project.

After all, it was April 1.

''They kept emphasizing it was not an April Fool's joke,'' said Bartlett.

It wasn't. Along with the giant jaw lay a jumble of other big brown bones, buried beneath an old sugar farm in Hendry County being converted into a marsh to treat polluted runoff.

''This was something; we didn't know what,'' he said.

Experts believe it is a giant ground sloth, ancient plant-eaters the size of elephants that disappeared long before the Everglades even formed 4,000 to 6,000 years ago.

While skeletons of several sloth species and other extinct megamammals have been discovered all over Florida, such finds are relatively rare. It will take scientists time to say whether this one is significant, but it potentially could add to knowledge of Florida's prehistoric past.

''It's always possible that something new or a better representation of something rare will show up in these sites,'' said Russell McCarty, a senior paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, which will study the remains. ``We're always interested to see.''

Workers made the discovery while digging fill material to add 1,400 acres to one of the massive treatment marshes the South Florida Water Management District is using to help clean and restore the River of Grass.

They were down about 10 feet, deep below the rich Glades muck and through an underlying layer of sand and gravel, when something big and weird clunked from the bucket of the hydraulic excavator into a dump truck, said Bartlett, a project manager for Joint Venture, a contractor helping build the treatment marsh.

When more bones were slurped up, workers -- instructed to look out for anything unusual -- quickly shut down the equipment and took a closer look. That set off a series of calls that will bring two paleontologists on Tuesday to the isolated site, just beyond the northwestern corner of Broward County, to monitor what else comes up when digging is scheduled to resume.

But McCarty and other experts at the museum have already examined enough photos to recognize the distinctive powerful jaw of a tree-munching ground sloth.

The bones have surprised and fascinated everyone at the district, from engineers to archaeologists.

''It's not anything we would have expected to find,'' said Juan Diaz-Carreras, the district's cultural resources director.

Field surveys, during which workers sift through the top few feet or so of soil, had identified and taken extensive steps to protect Native American mounds nearby, he said. But that work, performed before projects begin, isn't designed to find something that predates the Everglades itself by thousands, perhaps even millions of years.

''This is too far buried,'' he said. ``It's not like we missed it the first time around.''

Giant sloth are believed to have been around for at least eight million years, and several species have been found in Florida and across North America. Unlike small, tree-climbing surviving relatives, these beasts were huge, some weighing in at perhaps three tons, far too fat to scamper up tree limbs.

Instead, scientists believe they shuffled along on large feet equipped with huge claws to strip trees. A strong tail is believed to have allowed them to stand and reach high into trees for thick greenery that made up their diet.

Fully erect, the largest species might stand 15 to 20 feet high -- a bit taller than the heavy machinery that unearthed this particular skeleton. One pelvic bone alone was described as being as large as a truck tire.

For reasons not completely understood -- climate change, disease, perhaps even hunting by early man -- they all seemed to disappear 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, said Mark Renz, an author of several books on Florida fossils. The museum has asked Renz to help sort bones when work starts again next week.

Renz, who also runs a tour business called Fossil Expeditions, said that while the condition of the bones is important, the age of fossils may be most significant, along with whether other creatures also are found in the mix.

John Whitaker, an archaeologist with Janus Research, a district consultant that is also dispatching a paleontologist, said experts told him they also may have spotted ancient llama bones in the photos.

The bones don't necessarily have to be the oldest found to be valuable for scholars.

Renz said he just completed 18 months of excavating a site near LaBelle, at Hendry's opposite northwestern corner, that contained a range of animals, including mastodon, young and old, all dating back 500,000 years.

University of Florida paleontologists told him the bones had helped fill a critical gap, he said. ``What made it unique was it was an uncommon time period for those common animals.''

Roberto Fabricio, a spokesman for the district, said the careful handling of bones in a critical treatment marsh scheduled to go on line at the end of the year showed the district was concerned about all the system's resources.

Clearly, he said, the ancient skeleton also ``adds a little more mystique to the Everglades.''

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I strongly disagree with the time frames that is given in this report. I point out this report to show that it is more proof that life did grow to immense size at one time. A time just prior to Noah's flood.