Everything about the discovery of a fossilized leatherback sea turtle in Alabama four years ago is fascinating. The findings of the never-before studied species were published in a study Friday, concluding (for now) a story that’s been millions of years in the making. The most recent chapter began in 2021, when a family in Alabama discovered the rock, and later recruited professionals to verify what they suspected was a monumental find.
“I put my hands on it. I just had to confirm that it was real,” paleontologist and Gulf State Park Learning Campus senior education research manager Andrew Gentry tells Outdoor Life. “Anything else, I would have taken pictures and left it there. But because it was this one-in-a-million, incredible fossil, I knew we had to get it out of there.”
Fossil Hunting in Alabama
Adam and Adrienne Coleman frequently look for fossils with their two kids, Talah and Corey. They’ve fossil hunted for years, and in 2021, they were fishing the Alabama River while also scanning the banks. Under a dense canopy and below a 30-foot cliff, they spotted an SUV-sized boulder that was anything but ordinary. They didn’t know exactly what it was or how old it was, but it’s size seemed significant.
“When we came across that, we all just kind of stared at each other for a minute, like ‘This is it,’” Adrienne Coleman, told AL.com. “We were really, really excited, but it was crazy how quiet we were that first day about it. We were just looking at everything so hard, examining everything, kind of just in awe.”
Without knowing what they’d found or who to ask about it, the Colemans initially decided to keep the fossil a secret. For months, they regularly visited the spot, often eating lunch in the shade of the cliff that stood just behind the huge, dome-shaped fossil. More than a year later, Adam Coleman happened to see a news article about a paleontologist in south Alabama named Dr. Andrew Gentry. Adam contacted Gentry and asked if he would be willing to help them identify the fossil. Gentry was skeptical at first. That’s not surprising, since rockhounds frequently report special finds to professional researchers (who rarely consider the same find scientifically valuable).
“I recognized it immediately. It was the intact shell of a sea turtle,” says Gentry, who specializes in fossilized turtles. “I was quiet because I was in shock. I really couldn’t believe it. I’ve seen so many wonderful fossils in Alabama, but this was unlike anything I had ever seen before.”
The fossil, which turned out to be 32 million years old, is extremely unique for many reasons. First, it’s in pristine condition. Turtle shells are a collection of bone fragments (called ossicles) that hold the shell together like puzzle pieces. Collagen glues the structure together — and it decays rapidly after death, collapsing and causing turtle shells to resemble shards of broken pottery rather than a true shell. But in this case, the ancient turtle’s shell is preserved intact, with a visible mosaic that looks something like a sunflower.
The find is also significant because this particular species — a ridgeless leatherback sea turtle — had never been discovered before, which means the Coleman family discovered a new genus and a new species, albeit an extinct one.
“There was excitement, but then [came] the realization of what it would take to recover the fossil,” Gentry says. “The boulder attached to it is limestone that is incredibly dense. And I don’t know the exact location of the middle of nowhere, but this had to be close. There [seemed like] no way to get machinery of any kind out to this thing.”
Excavating in the Middle of Nowhere
The first expedition to excavate the fossil happened during the drought of June 2023. The river was low, and hopes were high. A special load-bearing boat ferried equipment and crew to the fossil site. They encased the shell in plaster to protect it, then began drilling around it. The rock didn’t give. Instead, it ate drill bits and bent spikes. The crew left empty handed.
The second expedition occurred a month later, between rainstorms. The dig site had been under 20 feet of water for weeks, but even after the floodwaters had receded, the river remained high. The team brought heavier-duty equipment this time. Even so, it took workers a full day to crack the limestone (as they worked amid a swarm of angry bees), then hoist the 2,000-pound load onto the boat. They towed it back to civilization to begin cleaning and studying the fossilized shell.
“It became obvious how much more incredible the fossil was than I first realized,” Gentry says. “It has more than 1,000 ossicles in their natural position. I compared it to all other fossilized leatherbacks sea turtles on Earth for six months. This is unlike any other leatherback fossil ever discovered. It’s going to take years of drilling and cleaning to see what else is there.”
Naming a New Species
Student researcher Kimberly Gregson has already spent two years cleaning the shell. Gregson, who grew up in Alabama and is a member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, spent two hours each day during her last two years of high school excavating the fossilized shell. (She started college in Colorado this fall.)
“We used dental picks to get between the crevices,” Gregson tells OL. “Since the leatherback shell is so big, it took a while to do all the fine detail.”
It took a while to name the fossil, too. The Poarch Band helped with that. While Greek and Latin are commonly used within the scientific community to name newly-discovered species, this turtle’s scientific name was derived from both English and Mvskoke (pronounced Muscogee): Ueloca colemanorum. The species is colemanorum, in honor of the family who found the fossil. The genus is Ueloca (pronounced Wee-low-juh) which, in the language of Gregson’s tribe, means “water turtle.”
“Mvskoke is a dying language,” Gregson says. “We don’t have any fluent speakers that I know of and I only know greetings and how to introduce myself. Using a dying language revives it, especially in the scientific community. This is the first time a fossil has been named after Mvskoke. It’s pretty awesome.”
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Even as research on the fossilized turtle continues, the specimen is currently on display at McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
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