At first glance, it seems a nondescript creek - shallow, slow, partially hidden by overhanging vegetation, here and there a piece of discarded metal or plastic - typical of a lot of small creeks in an urbanized area.
But Christian Skillman saw something more: A pure, unmolested, free-flowing water system, bordered by high banks and ancient oaks. It had been there a long time, probably a very long time, and to Skillman, that meant one thing: fossils.He waded into the shallow water, swished his hand through a pocket of light sand and placed it inside the mouth of an animal that walked the earth 25 million years ago.
Skillman's find 10 months ago is being hailed by paleontologists.
"It's a wonderful find," said Dr. Bruce MacFadden, curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Fla., and an expert on prehistoric horses. "It is by far the most spectacular discovery of its kind in Florida."
The animal is miohippus, a three-toed dwarf horse, only about 24 inches high at the shoulder. Miohippus lived during the Miocene Epoch, a period that began about 25 million years ago and continued to about 5 million years ago. Skillman's little horse traveled in herds across broad plains and through forested areas, probably living on leaves, 20 million years before early man appeared.
But there's something wrong with this picture. Miohippus on the gallop through what is now Pinellas County doesn't square with what scientists thought was true about Florida 25 million years ago. An overwhelming amount of fossilized evidence tells us the state was under water then. So, how is a herd of horses to be explained?
"We wouldn't have expected to find evidence of land mammals there," said MacFadden, "but it doesn't necessarily force us to toss out the assumptions we have been working with. The horses could have lived on a rise in the land, an island, or perhaps they traveled here during a time when the sea level fell. It's hard to pin down."
"It could have been an isolated population of animals," said University of South Florida geologist Peter Harries, "something like what the Key deer is today."
Although its presence is a surprise in central Florida, miohippus has been found in the Dakotas and Nebraska and Oregon, where it was first described in the latter half of the 19th century.
Skillman, 29, was in area last May to install a backyard pool. An amateur paleontologist, he learned long ago that digging holes for pools is a way to combine business with pleasure. "I've found lots of shark teeth and a number of mammoth bones," he said.
Rivers and creeks are often wonderful fossil storehouses. Dead, bloated animals drifting downstream become caught up in places where the bank turns. Over millennia, bones collect and are covered by soil and plant matter. Most skeletons break up over time, but once in a while they are found intact.
Skillman could see a thin layer of sand covering most of the creek bottom, but ancient, hard clay had been exposed in some areas. He put his hand into a sand-filled pocket in the clay, touched a jawbone, and easily popped out three teeth. Sensing he had come across something important, and wanting to be careful, he took nothing more from the site that day.
With the cooperation of the homeowner, Skillman returned many times in the next few months, eventually removing much of the animal's skull and some bones from a leg. The clay was difficult to penetrate, however, and water in the creek would rise dramatically after every rain - sometimes to a depth of 5 or 6 feet.
After about a dozen failed attempts, Skillman said he decided excavation would be a job for people with training and experience.