Ice Age Fox Goes On Display in Vernal

26,400-year-old Red Fox from Uinta Mountains on temporary exhibit at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum

VERNAL, Utah — The skeleton of Roxy, an ice age red fox collected from deep in Whiterocks Cave in the Uinta Mountains a year ago, is now on temporary exhibit at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in Vernal. 

The skeleton of the adult female red fox was found by cavers decades ago but was only collected in August 2024 after US Forest Service geologist David Herron notified Utah Field House paleontologists that the small canid had been carbon dated in 2009 as being some 26,400 years old. A team of nine museum and Forest Service scientists and cavers spent six hours in the cave navigating its passages and photographing and collecting the skeleton, which was later voted the nickname “Roxy” in a museum poll. 

After collecting the specimen, the museum team had to dry the bones out very slowly over several months. This was done by wrapping each bone in a small plastic bag when it was collected in the cave. At the museum, the bags were then opened just a crack every few weeks until all bones were totally dry. 

The temperature and humidity of the part of the cave the skeleton was found in have been a steady 40°F and nearly 100%, respectively, probably for thousands of years. The process of acclimating the bones to warmer, drier, and more fluctuating conditions outside the cave took some time. 

“We still keep the storage room Roxy is in as close to 72°F and 15-25% humidity as we can,” said the Utah Field House’s John Foster. “Once she is in a warmer and drier climate than the cave, the key is consistency from then on too.”

Museum staff are 3D scanning and printing some of the bones as well, starting with the ones that will be used for a more refined carbon date and DNA analysis.

Roxy’s first day on display was August 26, the one-year anniversary of her “rescue” from the darkness of the cave. 

The parts of the skeleton on display will be out for approximately six months, after which they will be again stored in the more controlled conditions of the collections storage facility at the Utah Field House. 

The Museum encourages everyone who wants to see Roxy to come visit in the next few months. Utah Field House Park Manager Steve Sroka said, “It is a great opportunity to view an extraordinary fossil from the ice ages that took a lot of effort to collect.”