"Our presumption is that the rest of the skeleton is still lying under the sand," said state wildlife commission marine mammal biologist Tom Pitchford. But because it’s in a state park, scientists don’t plan on excavating the whole thing. Instead, he said, “we will be going back to the site to monitor it over time and see if the erosion exposes more bones.”
Scott Ludden was cruising along in his boat one weekend in May when he spotted something big and gray jutting out from the sands of Little Talbot Island State Park about 17 miles northeast of Jacksonville.
“Look at that palm tree,” he said. “That’s cool.” Then he blurted out, “No wait, that’s a bone!”
Ludden snapped some photos of the 13 1/2-foot-long bone and sent them to the University of North Florida. Eventually the photos made their way to state and federal whale experts.
They recognized what Ludden had found as resembling the mandible, or jawbone, of a right whale, a species so imperiled that there are only 450 or so left in the world. Right whales spend part of the year in the Atlantic Ocean off New England, but from December to March they swim down the East Coast to Florida to give birth to their calves. One scientist called what Ludden found “an extraordinary discovery.”
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