Pleistocone-Holocene Cave Faunas

The collections contain hundreds of specimens of microvertebrates from a variety of cave sites from the mid-Atlantic sites. Cave samples include Cumberland Cave (Allegany County, MD), Starr Chapel Cave (Bath County, VA) and Burja Cave (Lee County, VA). Taxa represented include bats, rodents, carnivorans, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. Most famously, the Burja Cave site produced Petra: a complete skeleton of a large felid of indeterminate affinities currently being prepared in the VMNH fossil laboratory.

Assorted microvertebrate fossils from the Cumberland Cave site in Allegany County, Maryland



Assorted, boxed microvertebrate specimens from the Starr Chapel Cave site in Bath County, Virginia



A remarkable specimen, Petra was recovered in Washington & Jefferson National Forest in Lee County, Virginia. The skeleton is currently under preparation in the VMNH paleontology lab.