a side passage in the cave and discovered an ancient bone. He brought the bone to David Mather at the St. Paul History Center, who was able to identify it as part of an elk or moose, but was unable to identify the exact species. The bone was then sent to the Illinois State Museum's assistant curator, Chris Widga. The Illinois State Museum identified the ancient bone to be a prehistoric Stag-Moose (Cervalces scotti) antler, which is the first record of a stag-moose in Minnesota. Shortly thereafter, Chris Widga was examining the discovery site of the antler when he discovered the skull to an ancient saber-tooth cat (Homotherium serum), which is the first record of a saber-tooth cat in the Great Lakes region. The nearest discovery of a saber-tooth cat is in northern Arkansas. The Rafter Radiocarbon National Isotope Center in New Zealand used radiocarbon dating to identify that the Saber-tooth cat lived approximately 27,000 years ago. Paleontologists were stunned when Penn State lab successfully amplified and sequenced DNA from the extinct saber-tooth cat. Since the discovery of the stag-moose antler and the saber-tooth cat skull, more than 175 ancient bones dating between 27,590 and 26,200 years old have been found in Tyson Spring Cave and Bat River Cave. References External links Minnesota Cave Preserve Minnesota Caving Club Caves of Minnesota Landforms of Fillmore County, Minnesota Driftless Area Paleontology in Minnesota Cenozoic paleontological sites of North America