Paleontologist uncovers a lost world beneath Florida's Gulf Coast

Harry Maisch, a paleontologist at Florida Gulf Coast University, has made a groundbreaking discovery: several shark and ray species in fossil form, never before recorded in Florida.

Just off Venice’s coast, beneath the Gulf waters, fossils of ancient creatures lie buried in the sand. These aren’t just the big, famous ones, like megalodon teeth, but tiny microfossils, too.

Maisch and his team collected sediment from the seafloor. In samples that measure less than a centimeter, they found micro-teeth from species previously unknown in that area.

“Fossils don’t have to be huge to be important,” Maisch said.

The new finds help scientists reconstruct ancient sea levels, water temperatures, and ecosystems from millions of years ago.

Some of the species he identified are globally extinct, an