Lost River - Karst Information Portal

2007 NSS Convention Guidebook
Figure 4. Lower right third molar of an adult
Harlan’s muskox, Bootherium bombifrons,
recovered from King Leo Pit Cave, Harrison
County, Indiana. Note the dark calcium carbonate
encrustation on the white tooth enamel. Scale in
centimeters. Ron Richards photo.
shelter for the flat-headed peccary (Platygonus
compressus) for thousands of years (Figure
5), and at least 600 individuals, including
juveniles, are represented by a count of just the
canine teeth. Natural attrition of the herd and
occasional entrapment likely were major causes
of peccary accumulation.
Figure 5. Artist’s depiction of Megenity Peccary
Cave, Crawford County, Indiana, 25,000 years ago
when it served as a shelter for the flat-headed peccary
(Platygonus compressus). The dire wolf (Canis
dirus) was the major predator of young peccaries.
Artist Karen Carr, Courtesy of the Indiana State
Museum and Historic Sites.
Interestingly, there is only one complete
peccary skull (Figure 6). While most skulls
had disintegrated into fragments and isolated
teeth where they lay on the cave floor, this
skull had been preserved by rapid burial in
204
Figure 6. The only complete skull of the flat-headed
peccary, Platygonus compressus, from Megenity
Peccary Cave, Crawford County, Indiana. Scale in
centimeters. Fred Lewis photo.
a water-filled chamber (Figure 7). The large
predator was the dire wolf, also represented by
one good skull (Figure 8). The earliest date of
accumulation is suggested by the presence of
the extinct giant land tortoise (Hesperotestudo
sp.), a species which today can only survive
in frost-free environments (Hibbard, 1960;
King and Saunders, 1986). This indicates a last
interglacial (Sangamonian) age for the earliest
deposits.
The bulk of accumulation suggests an open
environment with grassland species through
the 24,000–34,000 BP time period. A later,
cooler climate fauna with extralimital arctic
Figure 7. Skull of a black bear, Ursus americanus
(left) and of the flat-headed peccary, Platygonus
compressus (top right), recovered “snout-to-snout”
in the 25,000-year-old level of the Microfauna
Room, Megenity Peccary Cave, Crawford County,
Indiana. Black-and-white scale in centimeters.
Ron Richards photo.