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(Reuters) - Scientists excavating an ancient Wyoming sinkhole containing a rare trove of fossils of Ice Age mammals have unearthed hundreds of bones of such prehistoric animals as American cheetahs, a paleontologist said on Friday. The two-week dig by an international team of researchers led by Des Moines University paleontologist Julie Meachen marked the first exploration of Natural Trap Cave at the base of the Bighorn Mountains in north-central Wyoming since its initial discovery in the 1970s. Meachen said the extensive excavation that began late last month uncovered roughly 200 large bones of animals like horses that roamed North America...

It is thought the specimens became trapped inside the cave where the constant temperature and stable humidity perfectly mummified the remains. Image Credit: A. Boug Research Square (2025) CC BY 4.0 =============================================================== Alot of fun creatures dwell in caves, from cave spiders to the orange crocs and even a whole range of eyeless beasties. However, one species not typically found in caves is cheetahs, but a host of their mummified remains has been discovered inside a cave in Saudi Arabia. Cheetahs were once widespread across the Arabian Peninsula but have lost around 98 percent of their original historic range. Inside...

The cave is cool and damp -- prefect for preserving prehistoric remains, Meachen says. "It's like a refrigerator in there, and probably has been for 20,000 years," she said. "Some of the bones we're finding there have collagen in them. That is where you could get the ancient DNA." The scientists saw bones falling out of a part of the cave, and decided to start digging there. "That was the fossil layer," she said. "There is so much to dig. We have two more years for funding that we can be out there, so we are going to try to...

For the first time in three decades, paleontologists are about to revisit one of North America's most remarkable troves of ancient fossils: The bones of tens of thousands of animals piled at the bottom of a sinkhole-type cave. Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming is 85 feet (25 meters) deep and almost impossible to see until you're standing right next to it. Over tens of thousands of years, many, many animals—including now-extinct mammoths, short-faced bears, American lions and American cheetahs—shared the misfortune of not noticing the 15-foot-wide (4 meters) opening until they were plunging to their deaths. Now, the U.S. Bureau...

A new study, "Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American 'cheetah,' Miracinonyx trumani," was published in the scientific journal Current Biology on Friday. Using the tiniest of bones, including some found in Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave, the diet and DNA of the American cheetah-like cat have been revealed in astonishing detail... "It's actually most closely related to the living mountain lion, and those are both sister species most closely related to the jaguarundi," she said. "The three of them together are distantly related to modern cheetah."... Some of the best Late Pleistocene specimens [various species] ever found have come...