Year 1896 - The Cave of Milodon

In 1896, the scientific mission of the Swedish scientist Erland Nordenskjold arrived in Ultima Esperanza, collecting natural species for studies of geology, botany and zoology, which were being carried out in his country. Mr. Nordenskjold visited the house of Don Hermann Eberhard in Puerto Consuelo, and with great surprise he saw, hanging on a fence, a gigantic hide of long grey hairs, tending to reddish with a row of small bones in the part corresponding to the spine.

*** INFORMATION: Carnivorous Remains in the Milodon Cave Link here: https://youtu.be/7HnnjD3wmSA

It was something the naturalist had never seen before. The colonist Ernesto Von Heinz told him that the hide had been found in a gigantic cave, located very close by, hidden under a blanket of volcanic ash.

Nordenskjold was interested in visiting the cave, and went there in the company of some of the ranch workers. One of them, a former sailor named Alberto Conrad, noticed the scientific interest in strange animals and told him that he had seen the bones of a very old animal. Norderskjold went to see them and discovered that they were the fossil remains of an extinct megatherium from Patagonia, called Milodon, Gripotherium or Neomilodon.

Replica del Milodón en la cueva

The discovery of the leather led to the assumption that there were still living specimens in this region and a London newspaper financed an expedition with the aim of hunting specimens for zoos in England. Archaeologists, paleontologists and geologists who later visited the cave agreed that it was a specimen of a species that had been extinct for ten thousand years and that the leather had been preserved intact thanks to the ash that covered it and preserved it from decomposition.

Human remains, stone tools and bones of other extinct animals were found at the same site.

The cave has been much visited by scientists, who have carried out excavations and studies. Today it is an interesting tourist attraction.