{"id":199622,"date":"2026-03-20T20:25:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199622\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:25:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:25:25","slug":"fossilfest-takes-families-to-floridas-prehistoric-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/199622\/","title":{"rendered":"FossilFest takes families to Florida&#8217;s prehistoric past"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tampabayfossilclub.com\/fossilfest.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FossilFest<\/a> this weekend is a family-friendly event taking people into Florida&#8217;s prehistoric past.<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>FossilFest takes families back to Florida&#8217;s prehistoric past<\/p>\n<p>Fossils from a 500-pound armadillo will be on display\u00a0<br \/>\n<br \/>A touch table, mining station and workshops educate visitors about discovering and identifying fossils<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Robert Sinibaldi, affectionately called \u201cDr. Bob,&#8221; is looking forward to displaying a relevant find discovered during a dive last summer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis past year in June, I found the giant armadillo in the Steinhatchee River,\u201d said Sinibaldi, who has been diving for fossils for decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs soon as I found it \u2014 I&#8217;ve been doing it for a long time, over 30 years \u2014 I knew it was going to be scientifically relevant,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just in such incredible condition and so complete.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Complete and again, giant!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis one was about 500 pounds and about 6 feet long,\u201d Sinibaldi said. \u201cSo, they will see the bones of it. They will have some of the shell laid around it, so you can see what the shell looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It took numerous dives for Sinibaldi to collect those fossils.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve done 65 hours of downtime diving on the site to pull up what you will see displayed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay Fossil Club hosts FossilFest. Sinibaldi, who is on the board of directors, said participants will get to see and touch some of what collectors have preserved from Florida\u2019s past.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s vendors, we set up educational booths, there&#8217;s presentations, you can join the club, all kinds of things,\u201d Sinibaldi said.<\/p>\n<p>Workshops are also available, and children can enjoy a kids mine, where they search through sand and learn how to identify what they\u2019ve discovered.<\/p>\n<p>After FossilFest is over, the giant armadillo will be sent to the University of Florida to be studied.<\/p>\n<p>FossilFest will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Florida State Fairgrounds. It costs $10 to get in, and children 12 years old and younger can attend for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0FossilFest this weekend is a family-friendly event taking people into Florida&#8217;s prehistoric past. What You Need&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[274,104,1187,115,4094,7149,135,137,136,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-199622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-app-top-stories","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-melissa-eichman","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-on-the-town","13":"tag-on-the-town-app","14":"tag-tampa","15":"tag-tampa-headlines","16":"tag-tampa-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}