Skull of Fossil Camelid from American Falls Lake Bed Area of Idaho

Abstract

Much camel material is present in the Idaho State College museum collection of vertebrate fossils. Since 1939 this material has been collected from various stratigraphic horizons, chiefly within a forty-mile radius of Pocatello. Included in the area of research are the Pleistocene American Falls lake beds as well as the alluvial deposits overlying these beds. Part of our camelid collection came from the gravel pit near American Falls, worked by Dr. J. W. Gidley and Dr. C. L. Gazin (1935). More recently we have opened quarries just above the old town site of American Falls in an area stripped during World War II by the Bureau of Reclamation. From the recent excavations we have collected many jaws, teeth and skeletal parts of camels, ranging in age from juvenile to aged.