Denver Museum of Nature & Science

• Scientists Add Camel to List of Ice Age Animals
• Museum Crews to Return in May
• Museum Unveils Mastodon Specimens at the Capitol
• The Paleontology Certification Program
• Crews Pull More Than 100 Bones From Dig Site
• Ice Age Site Yields Five Mastodon Pelvises, Plus Two Tusks, Two Skulls
• Bone Count Reaches 546 at Ice Age Dig Site
• Museum Uncovers Mastodons of all Ages
• Today marks halfway point in seven-week dig
• National Geographic Follows Ice Age Dig
• Team Finds Evidence of Ice Age Horse
• Museum Finds Record Number of Fossils at Ice Age Site
• 27 Experts Dig into Science, Bone Count Tops 4,000
• Ice Age Site Yields 4,517 Bones from 20 Different Animals
• Museum Concludes Ice Age Fossil Excavation
• Science Updates and Landscape Paintings of the Dig Site
• Giant Bison on Display
• National Geographic and NOVA feature Ice Age fossil find in early 2012
• Museum Announces Plans for Digging Snowmastodon Book
• Snowmastodon Science Continues

Scientists Add Camel to List of Ice Age Animals

Camelops sp. The lower molar was discovered this spring

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science has launched its largest ever fossil excavation project -- involving 36 scientific experts, 107 trained volunteers, 35 staff members, and nine interns.  The Museum crew will spend seven weeks continuing the excavation of an exceptionally preserved series of Ice Age fossil ecosystems that were first discovered in October 2010 by a bulldozer driver working on the expansion of the Ziegler Reservoir.

After the dig concluded for the season last fall, a staff member from Gould Construction was sifting through sediment that had been removed from the dig site and made an important find. One small clue -- the two-inch lower molar of a Camelops -- was discovered.

Teeth are among the most recognizable features of fossil mammal species, so paleontologists linked this individual tooth to an Ice Age camel.

Camelops is an extinct genus of camels that once roamed western North America and disappeared along with mastodons at the end of the Pleistocene about 10,000 years ago. Camelops were slightly taller than modern camels and scientists are not certain if this species possessed a hump, like modern camels, or lacked one, like its modern llama relatives.

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  Scientists Add Camel to List of Ice Age Animals

  May 17, 2011
  A camel joins the list of Ice Age animals that once lived near Snowmass Village.

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