QUATERNARY BADGER (MUSTELIDAE: TAXIDEA) FROM SNAKE CREEK BURIAL CAVE, NEVADA

ABSTRACT:

We report on the fossils of the North American badger, Taxidea taxus (Carnivora) recovered from Snake Creek Burial Cave (SCBC), White Pine County, Nevada. The natural trap cave with its large funnel-shaped entrance at the base of the southern Snake Range, east-central Great Basin, contains deposits with radiocarbon ages that span from a median 8,709 cal yr BP to 48,028 cal yr BP. Skeletal remains of Taxidea are not overly abundant in the deposit compared to oth- er more common carnivorans such as the canids (e.g., foxes). Measurements of the cranial and postcranial remains fall somewhere in the medium range relative to extant badger specimens. Thus, this badger appears to have been of the typical size of extant members and not a large variety emblematic of many Late Pleistocene mammals. Macrobotanical remains from packrat middens in the east-central Great Basin suggest that subalpine and montane conifers grew on the lower mountain slopes and valley bottoms above high lake stands of Lake Bonneville. Given the right substrate, select species of subalpine and montane conifers, along with sagebrush and other shrubs, likely formed a continuous or near-continuous belt from the Wasatch Front of Utah to the Sierra Nevada of California/Nevada. Continued work on the faunas and floras from caves and packrat middens in the Snake Range (e.g., Smith Creek, Ladder, Combustion, Cathedral, Arches Caves) and low in the valley (e.g., SCBC, Garrison Cave) will help in the reconstruction of the Late Pleistocene biotic communities above the high stands of Lake Bonneville and how the biotic communities, including the badger, adapted to climate change.