Far West Texas News

UT Paleontologists Collecting Ancient Cat Fossils from Natural Bridge Caverns

In January, paleontologists from The University of Texas at Austin will be heading deep within areas of Natural Bridge Caverns that are not accessible to the public to collect a cache of ancient wildcat fossils that could help researchers learn more about wild Texas felines – which are rare and mysterious in both the prehistoric past and present.

The scientists don’t know yet what species the cat fossils are from. They do know they were small – about the size of today’s domestic cats, according to John Moretti, a doctoral student at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who is leading the fossil collection effort.

Moretti said that the cat tracks on the floor of a cavern chamber immediately brought to mind his own cats creeping around the cave.

“They’re cute little paw prints that get your imagination going,” he said.

Cats are solitary creatures, which makes them rare fossil finds. The cats of Natural Bridge Caverns can help scientists learn more about the diversity, distribution and behavior of wild cats that once roamed prehistoric Texas, and how the ancient felines compare to wildcat species living today.

Natural Bridge Caverns is located about 55 miles southwest of Austin and is a popular tourist destination visited by hundreds of thousands of guests every year. The largest commercial cave in Texas, roughly 20% of the cavern system has been lit and paved for educational public tours. The remaining area is “wild cave,” accessible only by experienced cave explorers or adventure tours.

The wildcat bones and tracks were found in 2019-2022 by the Natural Bridge Caverns caving team and scientists one mile from the entrance in three locations: a tight and muddy passageway called Discovery Crawl, and in two deep pits emptying into large chambers called The Dungeon and the Inferno Room. Each location contains the remains of at least one cat.

The Dungeon and the Inferno Room are entered by rappelling down 65-foot and 50-foot vertical drops that appear as holes in an overlying cave passageway. The cat tracks are located in this passageway – just before each drop to the chambers where the bones are found. Their placement suggests that the cats in the Dungeon and the Inferno room may have met their end by falling in.

“The cave is so utterly dark, and the openings are so precipitous and funnel-like that if you don’t know that the holes are there it is inevitable that you will fall in,” Moretti said.

The researchers will investigate whether the cat remains in the chambers can be matched to the prints.

Original source can be found here