Researchers have discovered fossils of an ancient armadillo-like ancestor and a giant tortoise in a cave in Texas.
While exploring a “water cave” in central Texas, scientists unearthed a lost Ice Age ecosystem with a vast array of fossils.
In a recent study in Quaternary Researchtwo researchers guarantee that the cave can preserve the remains of animals that lived during a relatively warm period of the last Ice Age.
John Moretti e John Younga local caver, were exploring Bender’s Cave near San Antonio in 2023 when they found the fossils. They reported the extent of their discoveries.
The cave is difficult to access and has an underground watercourse running through it, so it had been largely ignored by paleontologists. Now scientists found Ice Age fossils in mud.
Over the course of six expeditions between 2023 and 2024, Moretti and Young discovered fossils in 21 areas of the cave.
Among the discoveries were fossils of a armadillo the size of a liona claw from a giant sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii), camelids (Camelops), the ancient long-legged relatives of modern-day llamas, and remains of a giant turtle.
What really intrigued was the discovery of a pampateria (North Holmesina), that giant relative of the armadillo that lived during the middle to late Pleistocene (781,000 to 126,000 years ago); and that giant turtle (Hesperotestudo).
The discovery of these two fossilized animals left Moretti and Young perplexed, because These Ice Age giants were not known to have lived in this area.
Moretti and Young suggested that the remains of the animals were washed into the cave system from the surface during floods and then settled on the streambed.
If this is the case, the animals may have lived during a warmer interglacial period around 100,000 years agowhen temperatures rose and animals that preferred milder conditions moved into the region, the researchers proposed.
