Paleontologists Discover Probably the Largest Cave Hyena Den in Asia

12:29, June 27, 2023

In the cave they found the remains of ancient mammoths, rhinos, bison, deer and other animals [photo report]

The group of scientists from the Institute of Paleoecology of Plant and Animal Ecology of the URB RAS, Ural Federal University, Institute of Geology and Mineralogy SB RAS, Abakan club speleologists explored in the Republic of Khakassia cave (named Inayskaya), which was a long time den of cave hyenas. It is probably the largest den of cave hyenas in Asia. In total, paleontologists collected about 400 kg of bones and shipped them to Ekaterinburg.

"There is a similar cave in Russia - the Geographic Society Cave in the Far East. But it was excavated at the end of the Soviet era. All the material found there is stored in the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. But even there there are not so many remains of hyenas and, for example, no whole skulls. We have even two whole skulls - this is very rare. Finds of whole skulls in Russia can be counted on the fingers of one hand. As a result, one skull was left in Abakan, and the other was sent to Ekaterinburg for examination," says Dmitry Gimranov, Senior Researcher at the UrFU Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanities and the Institute of Paleoecology of Plant and Animal Ecology of the URB RAS.

The cave is also unique in that the bones are on the surface (no need to excavate) and are preserved untouched. Some of them are preserved in ice. Among the finds are large animals: mammoths, woolly and Merka rhinoceroses, woolly bison, yaks, red and northern, giant red deer, dzeren (antelope related to saiga). Among the predators - the ancient brown bear, fox and wolf. Among rodents - marmot and other small rodents that have not yet been identified. Scientists also found remains of frogs, toads, birds and fish.

"There are many animal remains in the cave, the list of fauna is quite long. Such places are unknown in Khakassia. There are mountain sheep, goats, bison, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, Merka rhinoceros, red deer, northern deer, giant deer, gazelle," explains Dmitry Malikov. - Based on the remains of the Merka rhinoceros, we were able to determine the date of the finds - 42 thousand years ago. In addition, the remains will allow us to learn more about the flora and fauna of that period, what the animals ate, and what the climate was like in that area. We will also get important information from the coprolites.

The cave was discovered by local people.

"We learned about the cave about five years ago. But since the area is remote and we were working at another site for a long time, we postponed the trip. We visited the site for the first time in June 2022 and immediately found the entrance to the cave. We were surprised by the size of the cave, it was really big. In Khakassia there is the largest grotto in Siberia, in the Borodinskaya cave. It is about three times bigger than this cave. Ineyskaya cave, we can say, is the second one", - explains the chairman of the Abakan club of speleologists Pavel Gridnev.

That the cave was a hyena den is confirmed by at least two facts: all the bones found there are gnawed, and there are several bones in the anatomical order.

"Rhinos, elephants and deer with characteristic gnawing marks. We also found a number of bones in anatomical order. For example, in rhinos, the ulna and radius bones are together. This suggests that hyenas dragged parts of carcasses into the cave. Another unique find is that the cave contains many bones of young animals. In fact, the bones of large hyenas are usually preserved because the bones of juveniles are very fragile, loose and delicate. They can also be chewed by the same hyenas. And we even found a whole skull of a young hyena, a lot of lower jaws and milk teeth, "- explains Dmitry Gimranov.

The findings will help to understand how hyena cubs grew up, what they ate, how the change of milk teeth took place and much more. 

The news article was translated by UrFU International Marketing Office. 
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