Family Fishing Trip Leads to "One-in-a-Million" Fossil Discovery (mcwane.org)

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Public Press Release -- no four-paragraph rule

Mobile, Ala. (September 12, 2025) — A family of four recently discovered the fossilized shell of a 32-million-year-old leatherback sea turtle while fishing along a river in south Alabama. The turtle shell, which is roughly 4 feet long and 3 feet across, represents a new genus and species of leatherback sea turtle and is one of the most complete fossils of its kind found anywhere in the world. The new species, Ueloca colemanorum (pronounced “Wee-low-juh kohl-man-or-um”) was named by Tribal Members of the Poarch Creek Indians in collaboration with a team of paleontologists from Alabama and California.

Adam Coleman and his wife Adrienne have spent years taking their two children, Talah and Corey, on regular fishing trips near their home in south Alabama. During these trips, the family occasionally takes breaks from fishing to search for fossils along the riverbank. Fossil hunting is a hobby Adam picked up from his father, and one that he now passes down to his children. “My dad got me into collecting fossils when I was a kid,” said Adam. “Now we look for them every time we’re on the river.”

In the spring of 2021, the family took a fishing trip that would change their lives forever when they came across something extraordinary embedded in a massive limestone boulder. “I’d never seen anything like it,” recalls Adrienne. “We knew it was probably a fossil but there was no telling what kind.” Without knowing what they’d found or who to ask for more information, the Coleman’s decided to keep it a secret. For months, the family regularly visited the bizarre find, often eating lunch in the shade of the cliff that stood just behind the huge, dome-shaped fossil.

More than a year later, Adam happened to see a news article about a paleontologist in south Alabama named Dr. Andrew Gentry. Adam contacted Dr. Gentry and asked if he would be willing to visit the site to try and identify what the family had found. Although skeptical, Gentry agreed. “When I saw the fossil for the first time, it was hard to believe what I was seeing,” said Gentry. “It was absolutely breathtaking.” Gentry, whose research focuses on the fossil turtles of Alabama, realized that the Colemans had uncovered the fossilized shell of an ancient leatherback sea turtle.

According to Gentry, “leatherback sea turtles are unique for having a shell made up of a mosaic of tiny bones called ossicles instead of the broad, flattened plates typical of most turtle shells. When leatherback turtles die, the collagen that holds the ossicles together quickly decays and the mosaic falls apart. This makes intact fossil leatherback shells exceptionally rare.”


Paleontologist Andrew Gentry (left) with Poarch Creek Indians Tribal Member and student researcher Kimberly Gregson (right) standing behind the fossilized shell of the newly discovered leatherback sea turtle Ueloca colemanorum. Gentry was the first to identify the fossil after the Coleman family discovered it. (Photo by Telegraph Creative)Telegraph Creative` {caption from al.com, which used a different pic with their positions reversed}

https://mcwane.org/press-releases/new-species-fossil-turtle/
https://www.al.com/news/mobile/2025/09/alabama-family-finds-32-million-year-old-sea-turtle-fossil-something-i-will-never-forget.html

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1. ""

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2. Wow, how cool, and wild is that!