TEXAS — A paleontologist from the University of Texas at Austin has discovered the fossilized remains of Ice Age animals that have never been found in Central Texas. John Moretti came across the bones while snorkeling for fossils in a cave.
Moretti said collecting the remains was as simple as plucking them from the bottom of the stream.
He said he’s made at least 10 trips to Bender’s Cave in Central Texas and discovered various kinds of Ice Age fossils. The remains are from a giant tortoise and an armadillo relative called a pampathere that was about the size of a lion.
Moretti discovered their shell and armor fragments, along with dozens of other fossils, while conducting the first paleontological study of a Texas water cave.
Moretti said there’s evidence that the water cave fossils could be from approximately 100,000 years ago during the last Ice Age.
According to a news release from the University of Texas at Austin, Bender’s Cave fossils have a lot in common with fossil sites in the Dallas area and Gulf Coast that date back to the last interglacial period. Fossils of the giant tortoise, pampathere and ground sloth have been found in these areas.
When Moretti conducted a statistical analysis that grouped Ice Age sites in Texas based on the similarity of their fossils, Bender’s Cave was grouped with these interglacial sites rather than sites in Central Texas.
While finding fossils in caves in places like San Antonio and Austin is nothing new, this recent discovery is changing what scientists thought they knew. Moretti said it just goes to show how much we still have to discover about other animals.
“We thought we’d really figured it all out, but nobody had ever studied these caves that have underground streams in them before,” said Moretti.