Largo paleontologist's old passion turns to new journeys

LARGO, Fla. (AP) — Twenty-something years ago, James Pendergraft took a reporter to a fossil site in Polk County. On that day, he was dazzling, spotting and identifying the ribs and teeth of extinct dugongs and sharks and mammoths.

Now, in 2018, he walked Indian Rocks Beach, scanning for forgotten flip flops, washed-up foam buoys and cheap sunglasses. This had become part of his ritual, most days around sunrise.

Wearing his faded "Paleontologists dig it" T-shirt, he studied lighter-colored, rectangular spots on the sand. "You can tell towels were there, which means people were there," Pendergraft, now 73, said. "It's a good spot to look."

No artifacts there, but Pendergraft still has an eye and a mind that tends to ponder.