West Texas road project digs up Ice Age-era sloth tooth, here's what else they found
After a West Texas road project unearthed ancient remains of Ice Age era animals, more details have come to light on what else was found and what will happen next.
On May 13, 2025, the Texas Department of Transportation announced the discovery of a tooth belonging to a Giant Ground Sloth in Lubbock. This tooth, along with a mix of other bones, was found during an archeological survey for Loop 88 between Jan. 27, 2025 – Feb. 5, 2025.
'We know we've found Giant Ground Sloth by its distinctive tooth,' said Chris Ringstaff, project planner with TxDOT's environmental affairs division, in a news release. 'We're here to get the road built. But who doesn't love digging up big ol' animals?'
The remains are now being preserved and studied by the Museum of Texas Tech, 3301 4th St. The team has already learned that the excavation included more than the sloth tooth.
Cool find: Giant Ground Sloth tooth found during Lubbock road project
Dr. Eileen Johnson offered further insight into the find, and more details about what was found. Johnson is the museum's curator of anthropology, the director of the Lubbock Lake Landmark and the Texas Tech University chair for the Heritage and Museum Sciences Masters degree.
"This is an exceedingly rare discovery for the southern plains and Llano Estacado," Johnson said. "We have a lot of work ahead of us, but it's very exciting, because it is such a rare and important find."
The remains are estimated to be between 18,000-36,000 years old, placing it in the Last Glacial Maximum, the later part of the Pleistocene Epoch. This epoch is more commonly known as the Ice Age.
"This is a major, major find for this time period, and we're still working with all of the remains," Johnson said. "They're very, very fragile, and it's going to take months and months to work with them, to do the conservation work, to get them stable enough to even handle them before I can begin to to do the work I need to do to determine species."
Behind-the-scenes: Museum of Texas Tech gives tour of Paleontology, dinosaurs, Antarctic items
Even though it is early in the process, Johnson did confirm other ancient creatures were in the mix.
"We have at least another species represented, and possibly two others," Johnson said. "We do have some what are called micro-vertebrates. Tiger salamanders were inhabiting these lakes at this particular time. We have big animals and very tiny animals. It's really a nifty little locality."
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These helped paint a picture of what the excavation site would have looked like at this time. Johnson said it would have been the edge of a small lake with woody vegetation.
"We do know that hackberry is a native tree, it goes back about five million years in the region, so the vegetation is probably associated with that, or something of that sort," Johnson said.
Samples of the materials have been sent to be tested for age, sediments and other data. It will be months, possibly at least a year before a report with the findings could be published, Johnson said.
For science: Here's what to know about Natural Sciences Research Laboratory at Texas Tech
"It takes time, but it's going to be well worth it," Johnson said. "We don't know the species, we don't know the animals, there's still a lot of additional discoveries. You've got the first chapter. We're just beginning that story."
TxDOT and the museum are working on a transfer of ownership, so the excavated materials will eventually belong to the museum.
This isn't the first discovery of an ancient animal in West Texas this year. In March, a mammoth tusk was found on a ranch in far West Texas and is in the care of Sul Ross State University.
'We live in an amazing region that has great discoveries found all the time,' Pan said. 'It's not unusual, but it is always fantastic.'
Alana Edgin writes about business, and occasionally historic discoveries, for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Got a news tip? Contact her via email at aedgin@lubbockonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: West Texas roadwork finds Ice Age sloth, what happens next
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