![]() ![]() ![]() Once targeted by collectors and looters, Spirit Eye Cave is now owned by businessman Jeff Fort, who supports research there. “As people work in various caves,” Mead said, “and they find dung, I guess it's good that they think of me, I don't know.” He's now the country's go-to expert for Pleistocene dung. Mead discovered his passion – the study of Ice Age dung – in 1969, on a scientific journey through the Grand Canyon. “For somebody who wants to reconstruct diet and environment,” Mead said, “getting animals that eat different plants – well, you take a look at all of them, and then you get a great story, that's kind of funny, because it's all poop.” Jim Mead is a paleontologist and chief scientist at the Mammoth Site, in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The scientists published their findings in fall 2021 – and they bring to life a vanished world. It's nothing to pooh-pooh – in the right hands, ancient dung is powerful stuff. ![]() In remote Spirit Eye Cave, near Pinto Canyon in Presidio County, researchers found something rare – the preserved dung of an extinct ground sloth. Scientists have made finds here that have illumined the story of life on Earth. West Texas has a rich history in paleontology. It browsed in hills and canyons, and its diet in our region included yucca leaves. The smallest of the four, it still weighed in at 1,000 pounds. The Shasta sloth was one of four ground sloth species that roamed North America in the late Ice Age. ![]()
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