2.5 million-year-old bone fragment found on Cape Coral city land

A plot of land in Cape Coral might not look like much, but 2.5 million years ago mammoths and mastodons roamed the ground here.

Crews working on the cape coral utilities project found a prehistoric bone fragment last month 13 feet deep in the earth.

“That’s crazy.” said resident Pedro Rios, “Well, there’s all those theories of evolution but then you see something like that locally.”

The bone fragment measuring about a foot in length and 10 inches wide is believed to be either a mastodon or a wooly mammoth.

It’s the end of a humerus bone that connects the shoulder to the elbow.

Ethan Soehnlein of Cape Coral “[It’s] a big big animal, like elephants today, but mammoths were much, much bigger … I’d never expect to find a mammoth bone in my home city.”

While archaeologist can’t put an exact date on it, they believe it’s at least 2.5 million years old, well before humans lived in this part of the world.

“I think that’s crazy because that’s a big piece of history and who knows there might be more,” Soehnlein said.

The field report does say there’s probably more fossils like it nearby, but the land belongs to the City of Cape Coral and their project will continue.

Rios, however, would like to know if there’s more, saying “I guess I understand keeping a schedule, but if you could pause even for a second, just to see if there’s something else what would be cool.”

For now, the fossil has a new home in the Cape Coral historical society’s collection, which will put it on display so everyone can come meet one of their prehistoric neighbors.

If the fossil was found on state-owned land it would be mandated they stop the project and look for more fossils.

The historical society says they’re planning a reveal for the prehistoric fossil next month.