Paleo Preserve Fossil Museum, Ruskin

About Paleo Preserve Fossil Museum

Paleo Preserve Fossil Museum displays fossils, photographs, and newspaper articles from the 1983 discovery at the Leisey Shell Pit in southern Hillsborough County. Visitors see remains of Pleistocene creatures including saber cats, mastodons, glyptodonts, and giant sloths that roamed Florida between 1.6 and 1.0 million years ago. The museum's exhibits reveal what the early ice age landscape looked like across Florida. Schools and groups participate in an interactive experience that includes an onsite educational presentation, a museum tour, and a hands-on dig in the fossil pit, where participants discover, collect, and keep fossils they find. The small nonprofit museum, started by paleontologist Frank Garcia to preserve the history of the Leisey Shell Pit excavation, opens a unique window on creatures and environments of prehistoric Florida. The museum is located on the grounds of Camp Bayou Nature Preserve in Ruskin.