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| Speleotherium logani White, Mead & Morgan, 2025 Logan's Austral Scrubox || Researchgate.net/publication/396444548 Artwork by Lloyd E. Logan |
Abstract
We here describe a new genus and species of ovibovine artiodactyl, Speleotherium logani, (Logan’s austral scrubox) from Muskox Cave in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, southeastern New Mexico, which has languished unrecognized since its collection in 1976. Speleotherium is one of the few new genera of Rancholabrean age (late Pleistocene) large mammals from temperate North America to be described in nearly a century. S. logani is characterized by having the skull with the horn cores nearly circular in cross section and projecting laterally from the frontal, directed slightly posteriorly, and curved slightly dorsally at their tips. The bases of the horn cores are enlarged dorsally and project medially to form a boss which does not extend to the midline of the skull. Among living and extinct bovids, the horn cores of Speleotherium are most similar to those of the muskox, Ovibos moschatus, and are very different from the horn cores of Euceratherium, an extinct genus of ovibovine from the late Pleistocene of North America to which the Muskox Cave bovid has been previously referred. The new species has the smallest tooth row length and metapodial size of the known North American ovibovines. S. logani has the most southern distribution of Pleistocene ovibovines in North America, with records from southern New Mexico, the states of Nuevo León and San Luis Potosí in Mexico, and Belize.
SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY
Artiodactyla Owen, 1848
Bovidae Gray, 1821
Caprinae Gray, 1821
Ovibovini Gill, 1872
Speleotherium new genus
Speleotherium logani new species
Etymology: Speleotherium from the Greek speos for ‘cave’ and therion for ‘beast’. Specific epithet in honor of Lloyd E. Logan who led the work in Muskox Cave in 1976 and 1977. Our preferred common name for this taxon is Logan’s austral scrubox. We prefer the term “scrub”, as it refers to a vegetation community, while “shrub” references a single individual plant.
Richard S. White, Jim I. Mead and Gary S. Morgan. 2025. Logan's Austral Scrubox, A New ovibovine (Mammalia: Artiodactyla: Bovidae) from Muskox Cave, Eddy County, New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin. 101: 473–494. [October 2025]
