A family fishing trip along a river in south Alabama led to the discovery of one of the most complete fossilized leatherback sea turtle shells ever found, a specimen that has since been named Ueloca colemanorum.

At roughly four feet long and three feet across, the fossil represents a new genus and species of leatherback sea turtle dating back 32 million years, and its preservation has stunned paleontologists across the country.

The find was first made by Adam and Adrienne Coleman and their two children, Talah and Corey, who often pause during fishing trips to hunt for fossils. When they came across the massive dome-shaped shell embedded in limestone in 2021, they kept the discovery a secret, visiting the site frequently without fully knowing what they had found. Eventually, Adam reached out to Dr. Andrew Gentry, a paleontologist whose work focuses on Alabama's fossil turtles, and asked him to take a look.

"When I saw the fossil for the first time, it was hard to believe what I was seeing," Gentry said. "It was absolutely breathtaking."

Leatherback sea turtles are particularly rare in the fossil record because their shells are composed of small bony ossicles held together by collagen, which quickly decays after death.

As Gentry explained, "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."

The significance of the discovery drew together researchers from McWane Science Center, the Geological Survey of Alabama, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, the Alabama Aquarium and NOAA, who worked with Gentry to recover the fossil. Among the team was Kimberly Gregson, a 19-year-old student researcher and member of the Poarch Creek Indians, who first joined the project while still a junior in high school.

"Even before I was involved, I was taking a biology class with my now mentor, Dr. Andrew Gentry, and I would frequently ask about updates on the excavation of the specimen," she said. "Once the leatherback was finally moved into the lab, Dr. Gentry offered me a position to be a student researcher on the project."

Her role began with preparing the fossil, carefully cleaning river mud from between the ossicles using dental picks, before moving on to reviewing scientific articles and analyzing diagnostic characteristics of the specimen. For Gregson, however, the connection ran deeper than science. Because the fossil was found on Creek ancestral homeland, the research team worked with the Calvin McGhee Cultural Department and Muscogee language experts to incorporate the Creek language into its name.

"Being a tribal member has always been a huge part of my life, and it's a really big deal that this fossil was found on my people's ancestral homeland," Gregson said. "In my tribe, Muscogee is a dying language. There's very few native speakers of the language and to be able to try to revive that language and that culture — I try to incorporate it into my daily life. This is part of that, by incorporating this scientific name in Muscogee. It's something that's going to live on."

The genus name, Ueloca, comes from the Muscogee words Uewa (water) and Locv (turtle). The species name, colemanorum, honors the Coleman family for their discovery.

The collaboration between culture and science is what Gregson hopes visitors take away when they view the fossil, now on display at McWane Science Center in Birmingham.

"I really want to incorporate the message of the Indigenous culture that is still living on, and it's still being revived, especially through this discovery," she said. "It feels great to give back to my community, my Indigenous community, but it also means a lot for me to give back to the scientific community."

For Dr. Gentry, the discovery added to a growing record of Alabama's fossil diversity, which continues to yield new species.

"With Alabama paleontology, there are actually a lot of new genera and species that have yet to be discovered," he said. "In just the last 10 years, we have had several new genera of fossil turtles described in the state of Alabama, and we have had several new genera of sharks. Alabama is one of the best places in the country to find fossils from the last 85 years."

Beyond his research, Gentry also integrates these discoveries into his teaching at the Learning Campus at Gulf State Park, where he leads programs like "Alabama Sea Monsters." For him, fossils like Ueloca bring science alive for students.

"It shows them what science really looks like," he said. "It's easy for them to learn material from a textbook or to watch a documentary, but to actually see the science happening in real time gives them a window into what it is actually like to produce the knowledge that they are now learning."

Working on the fossil left a lasting impression on Kimberly Gregson, both as a student researcher and as a tribal member. "This project has solidified for me that I want to continue to do research in my future career. I love science, I love research, and it feels like this was a once in a lifetime opportunity."

Gabriella Chavez is a Report for America corps member who writes about growth and development in Baldwin County and our natural spaces for Gulf Coast Media. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://tinyurl.com/yaf8yf5n.