If you like ham sandwiches, digging through clay with a screwdriver, or finding petrified bones from the Pliocene Epoch, I think you may want to sign up for The Tapir Challenge.

"The Tapir Challenge" is an excavation site at a quarry outside of Gainesville, near Newberry. The Museum of Natural History runs it, and most of the labor is done by volunteers. They call it the Tapir Challenge for two reasons; first, because they've been finding many tapirs and pieces of tapirs, and second, the challenge is to find more tapirs than another site run by some other university somewhere in Tennessee. For those of you who don't know, tapirs are "hoofed, plant-eating mammals distantly related to horses and rhinos." Really, they look like pigs with long floppy noses, although they don't make bacon or ham. Apparently they used to live in Florida until about 11,000 years ago, when they decided to leave before the senior citizens took over. Besides tapirs, many other animal remains have been found at the site, including giant ground sloths, frogs, ducks, and some kind of armadillo-like animal.

Now, it turns out, there is a reason that all of these animals died and fossilized in the same place. I'll start with the reason that it's in the middle of a limestone quarry. So, one day, while the quarry was digging up their limestone, they stumbled upon a clay pocket. Limestone quarries apparently don't make much money, since limestone is so worthless, so they decided it would be more cost effective to just dig around. That is where the paleontologists come in. While searching for small marine fossils, one found the site where they excavate now. The reason there is a big clay pocket in the middle of a giant bed of limestone is simple: sinkholes. So, a long time ago, this sinkhole opened up, and over the years, a bunch of sloths and tapirs fell in and died. The oxygen poor water at the bottom allowed them to decay slowly, and thus preserved their bones. Eventually the sinkhole filled with clay, and now it's our job to dig out this clay one handful at a time.

While I was digging there, I found several fossils. The smallest was a claw belonging to a tapir, and the best preserved was a radius, an arm bone, also from a tapir. Although sitting in a hole, rummaging through dirt may not seem like the greatest thing ever, in reality it was pretty fun, if you like that sort of thing. Uncovering a 2 million year old bone where you thought there was only clay is mildly exciting. This time, the excavations are planned to go through December, although there is much more work to do, so that there will probably be many more dates to go excavate. If you are interested, the website is located at: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/vertpaleo/2006_dig.htm You have to be 18 years old, so tough luck if you're not.