It doesn’t get much cooler than rappelling 85 feet to the bottom of a Wyoming cave where fossils from the last ice age are buried. That was my assignment two weeks ago as I reported about scientific research taking place at Natural Trap Cave. Some of the ice age fossils that have been found in the cave include an American lion, now extinct, a species that was about three times the size of today’s African lion, weighing in at 900 pounds. Through DNA, pollen and isotope analysis, the researchers will eventually have a much greater understanding of this era and maybe why the species went extinct thousands of years ago.

To learn more, check out my stories in this week’s Billings Gazette at http://bgz.tt/d9vxs and http://bgz.tt/uve6n