Lost River - Karst Information Portal

Figure 8. Skull of the dire wolf, Canis dirus,
from the Microfauna Room, Megenity Peccary
Cave, Crawford County, Indiana. This wolf
suffered a dislocated rear leg, likely rendering
him susceptible to entrapment. Fred Lewis photo.
Scale in centimeters.
shrew (Sorex arcticus), northern bog lemming
(Mictomys borealis), and yellow-cheeked vole
(Microtus xanthognathus), was dated at 14,125
BP, long after peccary accumulation had ceased.
Other extinct taxa are represented by several
osteoderms of the beautiful armadillo (Dasypus
bellus), a tooth portion of a tapir (Tapirus sp),
five teeth of the long-nosed peccary (Mylohyus
nasutus), and one disintegrated tooth of a
horse. Additional extralimital taxa include
heather vole (Phenacomys intermedius), boreal
red-backed vole (Clethrionomys gapperi), and
snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). More
recent accumulations are from the activities
of woodrats, wandering carnivores (scat),
and humans. After the grueling 24 years of
excavation have been completed will come the
great reward of cataloguing and analysis. The
occurrence of any bone recovered in the cave
can be plotted, revealing concentrations and
suggesting patterns of selection, accumulation,
and change through time.
A chapter on the origins of and change in
Indiana’s vertebrate fauna, with descriptions of
cave fossil occurrences (Richards and Whitaker,
1997), was included in The Natural Heritage of
Indiana.
The biggest surprise of Indiana’s karst
faunas was the 1996 discovery of a bone-rich
sinkhole deposit in Pipe Creek Junior Quarry,
Karst Vertebrate Paleobiology in Indiana
Grant County, containing the remains of
extinct rhinoceros, camel, llama, giant land
tortoise, and others among abundant bones
of turtles, frogs, snakes, and plant macrofossils
(Farlow, et al., 2001). Initially formed during
early Pliocene and or late Miocene times as a
collapsed cave roof, the passage became plugged
with sediment, forming a sinkhole pond at the
surface. An aquatic biota flourished, leaving
their remains in the dark organic pond fill,
supplemented by the bones and teeth of larger
animals (Figure 9). The 5 million year old
northern Indiana sinkhole remains were later
overridden by the ice of numerous glaciations
until discovery. The biota, under study by
numerous specialists, is among the few faunas of
its age in the interior of eastern North America
(Farlow, et al., 2001).
Figure 9. Artist’s rendering of the Pipe Creek
Sinkhole Biota, Grant County, northern Indiana.
Some 5 million years ago, this karst pond supported
a rich biota, including rhinoceros (Teleoceras sp.),
bone-crushing dog (Borophagus sp.), bear
(Plionarctos edensis) and a large species of peccary.
Artist Karen Carr, Courtesy Indiana State
Museum and Historic Sites.
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