During spring break, me and my family went to Tampa, Florida to visit my mom’s best friend. She told my mom about a state park near the area: Caladesi State Park. We decided to go the day after we arrived. We drove for 45 minutes to get to the ferry that takes us to the park. The captain of the ferry told us not to bring home any living organism that we may find on the beach. I thought there wasn’t going to be anything interesting on the beach.

I WAS WRONG.

When we got on the beach, you could see miles and miles of sand and interesting “items”. My dad got the idea to walk along the beach and see what we could find. We all agreed. Me and my father stared at the seagrass and sea urchins as we walked. My dad saw something that caught his eye, and he picked it up.

IT WAS A MAMMAL VERTEBRAE

I immediately became interested. My mom looked for seashells and sand dollars, we looked for bones. They were relatively easy to find, because the off white color contrasted with the white color of the shells we would find. We found a total of 16 bones, not including a bird skull.

I asked my doctor cousin if they were human bones. He said no, but maybe he was lying to me, because he didn’t say what animal it was.