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Hello,
I'm a school teacher in Florida, and I have a student who has brought in a questionable rock/fossil. I'm not sure that it's a shell (in fact I think it might be some kind of petrified wood), but I thought you might be able to help or at least aim us in the right direction.

It was found in South Florida, just south of us about two years ago by a girl named Savannah. She has been trying to identify it but so far has had no luck. It seems to be a small cone like object surrounded by gray stone.

It is about 2 inches long and 2 inches wide and is rather smooth. I've attached a couple of pictures, hope you can help. Thanks for any input.

Tim

Send Ideas to: Savannah via Tim

Identified:

Discussions:

• To me it looks like a sharks veretbra encased in a stony material.
  Regards, ...Charlie

• It looks like a bone fish vertebra that was rolled up in a mud ball. Now it is called a concretion. Age say 1 million to 23 million give are take a few million..Looks most like a Hake are Tuna vertebra.Hope this helps from getting hot in Texas. ...Wolfman

• I agree that it looks like a fish or shark vertebra in rock. The rock is probably limestone, so they could get a better view of the fossil by dissolving the rock away with acid. There are a number of guides to Florida vertebrate fossils.
  South Florida is pretty much all Pliocene and Pleistocene (under 5 million years). However, there's always the chance that it originally came from somewhere else as road gravel, ship ballast, etc. ...Dr. David C.