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The Peace River, which runs south through Hardee and DeSoto counties past Zolfo Springs and Arcadia, is where Florida's fossil collectors go.
Collectors paddle to the gravel beds and sift for shark teeth, ray plates, bits of whale and dugong, horse teeth, and now and then a piece of Ice Age mammoth or mastodon. Go in the dry season, roughly October through April, when the water is low and the gravel is easier to reach; many collectors want the river at Arcadia about a foot deep or less, and the U.S. Geological Survey posts its level online. The rules: shark and ray teeth, shells and plant fossils may be kept by anyone. Any other vertebrate fossil found on state land or in a state river needs a Florida Fossil Permit from the Florida Museum of Natural History, $5 for a year, and finds must be reported to the museum. No collecting at all in state or national parks or wildlife refuges.
DeSoto County. The Peace River begins near Bartow in Polk County, where Saddle Creek meets the Peace Creek Drainage Canal, and runs 76 miles southwest to Charlotte Harbor at Punta Gorda. Its drainage basin covers about 2,300 square miles and takes in nearly all of DeSoto and Hardee counties.
Open the guide →Hardee County. The Peace River rises near Bartow in Polk County and runs 76 miles southwest to Charlotte Harbor, and its drainage basin takes in nearly all of Hardee County. Sixteenth-century Spanish maps called it Rio de la Paz.
Open the guide →DeSoto County. The Arcadia Historic District takes in roughly 3,400 acres and 293 historic buildings, bounded by Lee and Mills Avenues and Imogene, Cypress, Pine and Magnolia Streets. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 10, 1984.
Open the guide →Venice in Sarasota County calls itself the shark tooth capital of the world, and its beaches back it up.
Read the answer →Most of them are in and around Orlando. Walt Disney World has four theme parks - Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom - and two water parks, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.
Orlando has the most. Walt Disney World has two, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach; Universal Orlando has Volcano Bay; SeaWorld's is Aquatica Orlando; and LEGOLAND Florida in Winter Haven has a water park beside its theme park.
On the Space Coast in Brevard County, where rockets go up from Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.
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