Just outside Lewisburg, West Virginia is a cave system known as Lost World Caverns. Have you been there? If so, you may already know about the ancient creature discovered inside the caverns...an ancestor of the modern black bear.
Lost World Caverns is a fascinating attraction located in beautiful Greenbriar County, West Virginia.
The owners of Lost World Caverns offer self-guided and guided tours of the cave (check Groupon to see if you can snag a special rate!) and have an impressive gift shop and natural history museum inside their large facility.
Inside the caverns, you'll discover formations like Goliath, which holds a Guinness World Record. There's a disappearing river, multiple impressive formations, and a waterfall that pours through the ceiling in rainy weather.
Plus, the temperature is always comfortably cool, making it a nice way to beat the heat during the summer!
But here's a lesser-known tidbit: at Lost World Caverns, you'll learn about West Virginia's oldest black bear skeleton, found in the cave by a tour guide.
The bones, discovered on a high shelf in the back of the cave, were carbon-dated at approximately 32,000 years old.
That means that black bears have lived in West Virginia much longer than previously thought!
In fact, the bones were at first suspected to be an ancient species of cave bear, but no. They are just your friendly neighborhood American black bear's great, great, great, greeeeeaaaaaaaat grandparents.
Isn't that cool? You can see these bones for yourself at the Lost World Caverns Natural History Museum, along with a good variety of other fossils, casts, and molds of a variety of fossils.
And there are a few fossils available for purchase, including shark teeth, ammonites, and others.
The gift shop/museum is open to all free of charge, but if you head that way, the self-guided cavern tour is definitely worth adding on to your experience! Consider calling ahead as they are limiting visitors to preserve an appropriate social distancing capacity. But don't worry; they typically have no problem accommodating all interested parties.
To learn more, visit Lost World Cavern's website or Facebook page.
Have you seen a black bear in your neighborhood or in the woods in West Virginia? Did you realize how long they've been around our area? West Virginia seems like the perfect spot for them, full of caves and forests. For another cave with some ancient fossils and bones, check out Organ Cave in nearby Ronceverte.
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