New thematic inventories and a bit more cave paleontology

A couple of thematic inventories have just been published with the involvement of the NPS Paleontology Program. One of these is the first part of a paleobotany series, eventually to be three parts covering the Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic. The first part, Matel et al. (2026), covers the Cenozoic and is available for download through February 24. This is one of the projects from the National Park Service-Paleontological Society Paleontology in the Park Fellowship Program. In it, we've worked to provide information on Cenozoic paleobotany for every park unit where it's known. (It's easier to do concisely when the record is one piece of petrified wood than when the park is, say, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, so necessarily the scale of detail varies.) For practical reasons the focus is on macrofossils, with pollen and such as an adjunct.

The other new inventory, Santucci et al. 2025, covers NPS cave paleontology from 2002 to 2023. This is presented as an update of a previous report (Santucci et al. 2001). I'm taking the opportunity here to add a postscript because the past couple of years have been very productive. First of all, we came upon a new park record: Kalaupapa National Historical Park, on the north side of Molokaʻi, Hawaii. Although main focus here is historical, this park has a very interesting geological story too, involving the collapse of a volcano and the subsequent growth of another smaller volcano. The smaller volcano is now extinct, leaving behind Kauhakō Crater. Inside the crater people have found bird bones in a cave. One is a partial ulna of the extinct flightless ibis Apteribis glenos, the other is a coracoid of Pterodroma hypoleuca, the modern Bonin petrel, which does not live on the island today (Olson and James 1982, 1991).

Also, a few things in press or under study have progressed in the past couple of years. Avid readers of this blog will know that the "musk ox" of Muskox Cave at Carlsbad Caverns National Park is now named Speleotherium logani (White et al. 2025). The Cumberland Bone Cave monograph has also been published (Eshelman et al. 2025). Most notable, though, has been the publication of work on Mammoth Cave National Park. The park inventory (Toomey et al. 2025) was mentioned here a few months back. There has also been a good short summary of the Mississippian vertebrates (Hodnett et al. 2024a) and no fewer than five new taxa: ctenacanthiforms Troglocladodus trimblei and Glikmanius careforum (Hodnett et al. 2023); petalodonts Clavusodens mcginnisi (Hodnett et al. 2024b) and Strigilodus tollesonae (Hodnett et al. 2024c); and holocephalan Macadens olsoni (Hodnett et al. 2025).

Clavusodens mcginnisi on the prowl, among the crinoids. Illustration by Benji Paysnoe for the National Park Service.

References

Eshelman, R. E., C. J. Bell, R. W. Graham, H. A. Semken, Jr., C. B. Withnell, S. G. Scarpetta, H. F. James, S. J. Godfrey, J. I. Mead, J.-P. Hodnett, and F. V. Grady. 2025. Middle Pleistocene Cumberland Bone Cave Local Fauna, Allegany County, Maryland: a systematic revision and paleoecological interpretation of the Irvingtonian, Middle Appalachians, USA. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 108.

Hodnett, J.-P., R. Toomey, H. C. Egli, G. Ward, J. R. Wood, R. Olson, K. Tolleson, J. S. Tweet, and V. L. Santucci. 2023. New ctenacanth sharks (Chondrichthyes; Elasmobranchii; Ctenacanthiformes) from the Middle to Late Mississippian of Kentucky and Alabama. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 43(3): e2292599. doi: 10.1080/02724634.2023.2292599.

Hodnett, J.-P., R. Toomey, R. Olson, K. Tolleson, R. Boldon, J. Wood, J. S. Tweet, and V. L. Santucci. 2024a. Sharks in the dark: Paleontological resource inventory reveals multiple successive Mississippian Subperiod cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes) assemblages within Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky. Park Stewardship Forum 40(1): 53–67. doi: 10.5070/P540162921.

Hodnett, J.-P. M., H. C. Egli, R. Toomey, R. Olson, K. Tolleson, R. Boldon, J. S. Tweet, and V. L. Santucci. 2024b. Obruchevodid petalodonts (Chondrichthyes, Petalodontiformes, Obruchevodidae) from the Middle Mississippian (Viséan) Joppa Member of the Ste. Genevieve Formation at Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, U.S.A. Journal of Paleontology 98(6): 1087–1097. doi: 10.1017/jpa.2024.40.

Hodnett, J.-P., R. Toomey, R. Olson. J. S. Tweet, and V. L. Santucci. 2024c. Janassid petalodonts (Chondrichthyes, Petalodontiformes, Janassidae) from the middle Mississippian (Viséan) Ste. Genevieve Formation, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky USA. Historical Biology 36(9):1783–1792. doi: 10.1080/08912963.2023.2231955.

Hodnett, J.-P., R. Toomey, H.-D. Sues, V. Santucci, K. Tolleson, and J. Tweet. 2025. A new euchondrocephalan chondrichthyan (Chondrichthyes, Euchondrocephali) from the Middle Mississippian (Viséan) Joppa Member of the Ste. Genevieve Formation at Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky, USA and a reassessment of the Lower Mississippian (Tournaisian-Viséan) “Helodus” coxanus Newberry, 1897. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 100: 87–93.

Matel, T. P., I. B. Huegele, C. R. Cace, K. M. M. Bober, L. D. Boucher, V. E. McCoy, E. J. Hermsen, S. R. Manchester, C. C. Visaggi, J. S. Tweet, and V. L. Santucci. 2026. Cenozoic paleobotanical resource inventory of the National Park System. Elements of Paleontology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/9781009770477.

Olson, S. L., and H. F. James. 1982. Prodromus of the fossil avifauna of the Hawaiian Islands. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology 365: 1–59.

Olson, S. L. and H. F. James. 1991. Descriptions of thirty-two new species of birds from the Hawaiian Islands. Part I. Non-Passeriformes. Ornithological Monographs 45:1-88.

Santucci, V. L., J. Kenworthy, and R. Kerbo. 2001. An inventory of paleontological resources associated with National Park Service caves. National Park Service Geological Resources Division Technical Report NPS/NRGRD/GRDTR-01/02.

Santucci, V. L., J.-P. Hodnett, P. Seiser, J. S. Tweet, and J. Wood. 2025. National Park Service cave paleontology: 2002-2023. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 87(4):108–116. doi: 10.4311/2024PA0119.

Toomey, R. S., J. S. Tweet, and V. L. Santucci , editors. 2025. Mammoth Cave National Park: Paleontological resource inventory (public version). Science Report NPS/SR—2025/243. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado. https://doi.org/10.36967/2308547 

White, R. S., J. I. Mead, and G. S. Morgan. 2025. Logan's austral scrubox, a new ovibovine (Mammalia: Artiodactyla: Bovidae) from Muskox Cave, Eddy County, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 101: 473–494.

Speleotherium logani

It would be easy to think that we've got the large Late Pleistocene mammals of North America pretty well locked down. After all, every self-respecting animal of that stripe has a long list of synonyms and pseudonyms, sometimes going well back into the 19th century. (All right, to be fair, horses are a mess if you look closely.) Even here, though, there can be surprises. Recently we had the Pacific mastodon and the re-establishment of the dire wolf in its own genus, and now we have the recognition of an entirely new genus and species of scrubox, Speleotherium logani (White et al. 2025).

If you know a bit of Greek, you'll get the idea that the name indicates we're dealing with a beast ("therium") associated in some way with caves ("speleo"). The holotype and best specimen of Speleotherium logani did indeed come from a cave, and in fact was partially encrusted with cave deposits (which certainly give it an unusual look but haven't made it easy to prepare or interpret). A few years ago the skull was photographed for a photogrammetric model, and you can take it for a spin and see the deposits, particularly on the right side of the face. This specimen and others were discovered in 1976 in what is now called Muskox Cave in its honor, within Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico. The species name honors the discover, Lloyd Logan. Although the name literally translates to "Logan's cave beast", the authors suggest the common name "Logan's austral scrubox" instead (White et al. 2025).

Figure 31 from Kottkamp et al. (2020), used in several other places as well (including White et al. 2025). You're looking at the back of the skull, going off to the right. Other bones are also visible, as well as the coating of cave mineralization.

The Muskox Cave fossils were long thought to belong to the shrubox Euceratherium (which is the name used for it at the 3D model above). That's how we labeled them in recent inventories of the park's fossils, for example (Kottkamp et al. 2020, 2022). It was not until White et al. began to prepare the specimens that it became apparent that there was something else here. Euceratherium has a narrow "forehead" and complexly twisted horn cores, whereas the Muskox Cave skull has a broad "forehead" and less curvy cores. The metapodials (metacarpals and metatarsals) are also shorter and stockier, which twigged something else; the authors knew of similarly proportioned metapodials of an animal similar to but much smaller than Euceratherium from sites in Mexico and Belize, but had never had a face to go with them. Speleotherium is therefore not a "one-off" but something that had a fairly wide range in North and Central America, and there are probably other examples that are currently listed as Euceratherium (White et al. 2025). The metapodial anatomy is rather similar to the same bones of the takin (White et al. 2025), which is a Himalayan bovid that's kind of in-between things like muskox, sheep, and goats in appearance and habits. That may give an idea of what Speleotherium was doing. The short and stocky metapodials suggest it was active in rugged terrain, but based on fossil distribution it was not limited to higher elevations (White et al. 2025).

The skull in the process of being captured by photogrammetry (producing the 3D model linked above), showing its best side. Figure 36 in Kottkamp et al. (2020).

Given we're dealing with National Park Service fossils, you can imagine it's been on my radar. It showed up in the 2001 inventory of NPS cave fossils as what is now a grainy photo (Santucci et al. 2001), but we've since been able to feature the image in higher resolution glory for Carlsbad-specific inventories (Kottkamp et al. 2020, 2022). There's been a soft spot for it around here; it even got a coloring page, now part of the "Cenozoic Life in the National Parks" coloring book (just mentally substitute Speleotherium for Euceratherium as the label; the coloring page was prepared long before the bones got their new name).

References

Kottkamp, S., V. L. Santucci, J. S. Tweet, R. D. Horrocks, E. Lynch, and G. S. Morgan. 2020. Carlsbad Caverns National Park: Paleontological resource inventory (public version). Natural Resource Report NPS/CAVE/NRR—2020/2148. National Park Service, Fort Collins, Colorado.

Kottkamp, S., V. L. Santucci, J. S. Tweet, R. D. Horrocks, and G. S. Morgan. 2022. Pleistocene vertebrates from Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 88:267–290.

Santucci, V. L., J. Kenworthy, and R. Kerbo. 2001. An inventory of paleontological resources associated with National Park Service caves. NPS Geologic Resources Division, Denver. Technical Report NPS/NRGRD/GRDTR-01/02.

White, R. S., J. I. Mead, and G. S. Morgan. 2025. Logan's austral scrubox, a new ovibovine (Mammalia: Artiodactyla: Bovidae) from Muskox Cave, Eddy County, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 101: 473–494.

Recent Work from the National Park Service Paleontology Program

My day job is with the Paleontology Program of the National Park Service, and I thought you might like to see some of the work we've put out over the past few months. First up is the Spring 2022 issue of the Park Paleontology newsletter. For this issue, we have articles on:

• The importance of collections
• Paleontology in the Parks Fellowships
• The Petrified Forest National Park prep lab
• The work of the Utah Geological Survey in Utah parks
• The story of the description of a new species from Badlands National Park
• A multi-disciplinary project to understand the namesake fossil beds of Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument
  
• And new artwork for Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument

Next, a couple of articles have just come out in the latest volume of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin series, both focused on Quaternary cave paleontology of specified parks in the southwest. Hodnett et al. (2022) describes previously overlooked bones from Grand Canyon National Park as specimens of the "American cheetah" Miracinonyx trumani. Meanwhile, drawing on the Carlsbad Caverns National Park paleontological inventory published a few years ago, Kottkamp et al. (2022) discusses the Pleistocene vertebrate record of the park's various caves.

Finally, public versions of our four latest park-specific paleontological inventory reports are also available to view and download. For just four parks, they feature a wide range of types of fossils, geology, and geography. They are:

• Colonial National Historical Park, Virginia
• Grand-Canyon Parashant National Monument, Arizona (functionally a companion piece to our work on Grand Canyon National Park)
• Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota
• Yucca House National Monument, Colorado (functionally a companion piece to the Mesa Verde National Park inventory report)

References

Hodnett, J. P., R. White, M. Carpenter, J. Mead, and V. L. Santucci. 2022. Miracinonyx trumani (Carnivora; Felidae) from the Rancholabrean of the Grand Canyon, Arizona and its implications on the ecology of the “American cheetah.” New Mexico Museum of Natural History Bulletin 88:157–186.

Kottkamp, S., V. L. Santucci, J. S. Tweet, R. D. Horrocks, and G. S. Morgan. 2022. Pleistocene vertebrates from Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 88:267–290.