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When fossil collecting, road cuts can hold many treasures for fossil hunters. But fossil hunters BEWARE! Those cuts hold something more: varmints that will hang on to your skin long after you've taken your fossil treasures home.

A Lesson Learned

We're new at this fossil hunting thing. Oh, we found our share of relics when we were kids and young adults, but as bona fide rock hounds, we are novices. We learned the varmint lesson the hard way this summer.

The Danger Sign

On a tip from a friend on a great place to find crinoids, we excitedly scrambled over a road cut in southern Indiana, paying no heed to the telltale signs that should have made us take care. In the excitement of fossil collecting, we ignored the water that was seeping from the cut...never thinking that the plants were anything more than a mild impediment to our rock hounding.

Something Found Us

By the next morning, our armpits and waists were dotted with quarter-inch red bumps. Surprisingly, the chiggers hadn't cared much for our ankles! My husband, who grew up in the west, had never experienced the intense itching of those little critters. Days after we arrived home and still itching, he scoured the internet for preventions and cures.

Oh, Now I Remember

I should have known better. I grew up in southern Ohio