A cave filled with an unbelievable quantity of animal bones – from mammoths and bears to frogs and wooly rhinos – has been discovered in Siberia. It’s pretty clear how the site amassed all of these Ice Age bones: this was a vast lair belonging to a gang of cave hyenas who dragged dozens of animals here for dinner.
Found near the Siberian city of Khakassia, the cave was home to the extinct hyena species around 42,000 years ago and is thought to be the largest cave hyena lair ever discovered in Asia.
Researchers collected around 400 kilograms (882 pounds) of bones from the cave and sent them to Yekaterinburg for further analysis. Among the gnawed animals’ bones found here are those from mammoths, rhinos, wooly bison, yaks, deer, gazelle, ancient brown bears, foxes, wolves, a selection of rodents, frogs, toads, birds, and fish.
Bones of mammoths, rhinos, wooly bison, yaks, deer, gazelle, and many other species were uncovered in the cave. Image credit: V. S. Sobolev Institute of Geology and Mineralogy
They also discovered the skulls of two cave hyenas, affirming their suspicions that this was a feeding hub for this predator.
“Rhinos, elephants, deer with characteristic bite marks. In addition, we came across a series of bones in anatomical order. For example, in rhinos, the ulna and radius bones are together. This suggests that the hyenas dragged parts of the carcasses into the lair,” Dmitry Gimranov, senior researcher from the Laboratories of Natural Science Methods at the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in a statement
“Another unique find is that there are many bones of puppies in the cave. The fact is that the bones of large hyenas are usually preserved, since the bones of young individuals are very fragile, loose, and delicate. In addition, the same hyenas can gnaw them. And we even found a whole skull of a young hyenen, many lower jaws and milk teeth,” added Gimranov.
Source Link: Cave Containing 400 Kilograms Of Bones Was A Huge Hyena Hangout Spot
