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FALL, 1998 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 4

THE BARE BONES VISITOR OF THIS ISSUE: INFORMATION

Visitor Center Schedule Winter hours for the Visitor Center are Thursday through Sunday, 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. (unless otherwise Ranger Patrol noted). Brochures and copies of "The Fossil Record" may be picked up in Another Trail Opens front of the Visitor Center (which is located on Highway 30 across from the High School), or by calling Resource Management (208) 837-4793.

Monumental Science

RANGER PATROL - Please Critter Corner remember that all access on the Monument is limited to designated School Programs trails except in the Hunting and Fishing Zone along the . The public is asked to report any Printed on recycled paper. illegal activities observed in the park.

HAGERMAN FOSSIL BEDS NATIONAL MONUMENT • 221 NORTH STATE STREET • P.O. BOX 570 • HAGERMAN, IDAHO 83332 • PHONE (208) 837-4793 Hunting season has arrived, so Mary also assisted with reviewing the Monument users should look out for brochure. Interested Oregon Trail each other. We want you to have a buffs may catch one of her programs safe and enjoyable experience here. as "Grammaw Maudie Miller" at the Part of the River Trail passes through Monument or other locations. the hunting zone, so visitors in this area of the Monument should be alert. Hikers that day were surprised on the trail by "Captain Walkef'of the U.S. Cavalry, portrayed by Bob Willhite. NEW TRAIL OPENING - He rode his white Arabian stallion, The Emigrant Trail on the southern Sir Vivor, with 1859 replica gear, and end of the Monument was officially cautioned the hikers to be alert and opened on Saturday, August 22. This warned them of the many dangers adds another three miles to the four along the "trail." opened earlier this year.

Construction of the trail was made possible by a generous grant from American Airlines in coordination with the National Park Foundation. Its purpose is to allow visitors to "Experience the Oregon Trail." A brochure provides quotes from emigrant journals which guide the visitor on this "Trail Into the Past." The brochure may be obtained at the trail head register box or by Our thanks to Thousand Things and contacting the park office. the Hagerman Buyway for their donation of beverages for the trail Chief Ranger Bob Willhite, who opening participants. designed the trail and brochure, provided some opening remarks and The trail starts across from the Snake acknowledged Kay Threlkeld from River Overlook in an area where the National Trails Office in Salt wagons camped to trade for salmon City, Utah. Mary Inman of with the American Indians. The trail Twin Falls, a living history presenter then leads up a canyon at a gradual of Oregon Trail stories, also made the grade for about two miles until a opening day hike along with others. steep grade (ten percent), leads to the

2 top of the bluff. The trail ends at the Monument. The location of the Oregon Trail Overlook. The round stakes were accurately established trip is six miles unless you have a using a laser transit to determine the second vehicle. 50 foot elevation level above the high water mark of the Snake River. This To preserve the historical character, zone was established by Congress to the trail is open only to hiking or preserve hunting on Monument lands. horseback riding. Mountain bikes and other vehicles are prohibited. The footing is soft so it is also Rattlesnakes - Recreationists ideal for jogging, or for horses with using the Snake River should be no shoes. Horse trailers must park at aware that rattlesnakes concentrate the Oregon Trail Overlook and ride along the shoreline when the weather down the trail to the register box and gets hot. Bob Willhite had close start reading the brochure from that encounters with eleven rattlesnakes point to maintain the journal quotation sequence. Please be sure that your horses have been eating Certified Weed Free hay or cubes, 96 hours prior to the ride, as required by all of the National lands in Idaho. this summer. Nearly all were within 25 feet of water. Surprisingly many There are no toilet facilities or of the snakes did not rattle when the drinking water available along the temperature was hot. Perhaps they way. The conditions are similar to react to the heat much like people and how the emigrants found them. Wear become sluggish. As the television sturdy hiking shoes and be prepared show said, "Be careful out there." for rapid changes in the weather. SPECIAL EXHIBIT From September 15 to October 5, RESOURCE Hagerman Fossil Beds National MANAGEMENT Monument participated in Magic Valley Mall's "The Mammals of the Ice Age" Hunting Markers - This summer exhibit. A comparative display, designed by the Fossil Beds, showed the employees installed about 100 more differences between and yellow fiberglass stakes to mark the animals. upper limit for hunting on the

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The second year of excavation at the Cook's Grison Hagerman Horse Quarry continued with the removal of several more By Dr. H. Greg McDonald, "Hagerman Horse" skulls and Monument Paleontologist hundreds more of their bones. These were carefully documented Often when new animals and plants are given a scientific name, part of that name is based on the name of a person. The reasons for using a person's name are as varied as the personalities doing the descriptions. Often the reason is straightforward; it is an acknowledgment of a scientist's contributions to the study of a group and removed from the quarry and of organisms, or to recognize the transported to the lab where person who first discovered the preparators remove the bone from the specimen. Such a practice has always . been associated with the description of new animals from Hagerman Besides the quarry, field work also starting in 1933 when C.L. Gazin included surveying and documenting described a new species of fossil other fossil sites on the Monument. shrew, naming it Blarina gidleyi after To protect these sites from vandalism, James Gidley. Gidley was Gazin's a laser transit is used to determine the predecessor at the Smithsonian and locations so no visible reference is the first paleontologist to work at needed on the ground. Over fifty Hagerman. previously known sites were revisited this summer and many new fossils The following year Gazin published were recovered. Voles, frogs, snakes, the first paper on the carnivores of shrews, fish and rabbits dominated Hagerman Fossil Beds and described the microfossil collection, while the mustelids (the carnivore group to beavers, turtles, camels, llamas, and which weasels, skunks, badgers and mastodonts were also found. Over wolverines belong). Among the all, it was an exciting and productive animals described was an animal summer for paleontology on the closely related to the living South Monument. American grison (known as the huron

4 in Spanish and furao in Portuguese) While most people may not know too which he named Lutravus cooki. many details about the anatomy of the Although later studies of this animal family Mustelidae, most people are and its relatives resulted in a change familiar with at least one of the in the first name, we now refer to this group's obvious attributes - their well animal by the scientific name developed scent gland! While the Trigonictis cooki. development of a scent gland is carried to the extreme in skunks, a Anyone who has spent any time well developed scent gland is present reading about the history of in all members of the group including paleontology at Hagerman Fossil weasels, badgers and wolverines. Beds can probably guess the Like all soft tissues, such as muscle individual after whom the species was or nerves, the scent glands are not named, Elmer Cook. Elmer, born in preserved as fossils (for which 1887 in Glenwood, Utah came to paleontologists are grateful). Given Hagerman as a boy about 1901 and the absence of this important feature, was a long time resident. In many of the question might be raised, "How the early scientific papers written do we know the fossil forms like about the fossils of Hagerman, Elmer those found at Hagerman are related is credited as being instrumental in to the living species in South bringing the fossils in the Hagerman America?" As is the case for many area to the attention of the scientific mammals, the patterns and shapes of community. He worked for the the teeth are distinctive. Gazin based Smithsonian during their excavations his original description of Trigonictis at the Hagerman Horse Quarry and cooki on a lower jaw with two ending in 1934, but continued to premolars and a molar preserved. collect specimens for the The number of teeth in the jaw, their Smithsonian. In recognition of his relative size to each other, and the many contributions, Gazin named this shape of the cusps of the different newly discovered animal after him. teeth all provided clues as to the type of animal from which the jaw came. However, there were enough differences to also demonstrate that this was a new member of the group and that it deserved a new and distinctive name, thus providing an opportunity for Gazin to recognize Elmer Cook's contributions.

5 Members of the Mustelidae family known as Trigonictis macrodon are found around the world, including (meaning large tooth). At one time it South America, where relatives of was thought that the smaller species our fossil animal Trigonictis cooki cooki might be the female form of the live today. One species does get as larger species macrodon. At first this far north as southern Mexico, but is seems possible since we know in also found as far south as central Peru modern weasels and their relatives, and southeastern Brazil. the males are noticeably larger than the females. However, many features Along with the grison there are other of Trigonictis cooki distinguish it members of the Mustelidae that are from the larger species. While we found in South America, but like the might not expect to have two closely grison, all are derived from North related species of carnivore living in American ancestors, and many have one place, a close relative of the ancestors known from fossil localities living grison, called the tayra is also all over North America. It may be found from southern Mexico into that the species of Trigonictis found South America. The tayra is larger at Hagerman and elsewhere, is the than the grison, and while the grison direct ancestor of the living genus lives on the ground in more open Galictis which includes the two country, the tayra is a forest animal species that are known as grisons. and lives in trees.

The living grison is about the size of Perhaps the two species of Trigonictis a mink and has a similar elongated found at Hagerman were similar with body seen in weasels and minks. the smaller cooki being the open Since Gazin's original description, country form and the larger macrodon additional specimens of Trigonictis preferring forests. Based on our cooki have been found, including current knowledge of the geology and partial skeletons which provide a paleoecology at Hagerman, we know better idea of the size and proportions that both types of habitats were of the animal. In addition to present in the area 3.5 million years Trigonictis cooki, there is a second ago. As more specimens of Cook's larger species of Trigonictis known grison and the "large tooth" grison from Hagerman. This second species are found, we will have more was also described by Gazin as information with which to work. Trigonictis idahoensis but it has since been determined that this is the same While 1998 marks the 10th as an earlier described species now Anniversary of the establishment of

6 Hagerman Fossil Beds as a National FURTHER READING Monument, it is also the 69th Bjork, P.R. 1970. The Carnivora of the Hagerman Local Fauna (Late Pliocene) of Southwestern Idaho. anniversary of the first excavation of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, the Horse Quarry and the 64th new series, 60(7):54 pp. anniversary of the description of Gazin, C.L. 1934. Upper Pliocene Mustelids from the Snake River Basin of Idaho. Journal of Trigonictis cooki. Since there is no Mammalogy 15(2):137-149. one word that can be used to describe Ray, C.E., E. Anderson, and S.D. Webb. 1981. all these anniversaries together The Blancan Carnviore Trigonictis (Mammalia: perhaps we can roll them all together Mustelidae) in the Eastern United States. Brimleyana No. 5:1-36. and call this our "Grison-tennial."

SCHOOL PROGRAMS Teachers - Students - would you like to learn more about Hagerman Fossil Beds £LE6% National Monument? Throughout the 1998-99 school year, we C OUR * are offering free programs to school groups either at your location or here at 10TH rfflMIWERSffil the Fossil Beds. Each class must make a WITH US\ reservation and group size is limited. For more information, please call Judi Hart at the National Park Service - 837-4793. JOIN US FOR AN OPEN HOUSE AND THE MONUMENT RIDDLE What weighs over 400 pounds and was DEDICATION OF found in the Monument? No, it is not a THE giant ground sloth, nor a mastodon...it's the trash that was picked up on our "ELMER COOK Fourth Annual Monument Clean-Up! CLASSROOM" We would like to thank Rick and his son AT THE VISITOR Kevin from Mountain Home Air Force Base and park staff for their efforts in CENTER, maintaining a clean environment. Plans WEDNESDAY, for our Fifth Annual Clean-up are underway. We hope to coordinate this NOVEMBER 18! event with Earth Day (April 22) 1:00 - 5:00 pm celebrations. Look for more information next year.

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