If I Were Going...: Dakotas Trip – Agate Fossil Beds and Home

Rural South Dakota

Time to go home.

We decided to head home through Nebraska and get one more stamp in our National Park Passports -- Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. We had considered going there once when we were at Scottsbluff National Monument, but we ran out of time, so we figured, what the heck?

Agate Fossil Beds is in the middle of nowhere, but it was worth the trip. We filled the car with gas because the Agate Fossil Beds website warns about the paucity of services in the area -- and because we had figuratively gone down that road once already.

Red-tailed Hawk

Then, we drove through rolling farmlands to our destination. We saw an assortment of Red-tailed Hawks, many with uncharacteristic white heads. I never got a good picture of one, just some blurry distant shots. We also saw a few Swainson’s Hawks on posts.

Upland Sandpiper

As we zoomed by, one bird stuck out as odd for standing on a post in an open field.

It was an Upland Sandpiper – the same bird I saw but never could photograph at Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge! Score!

You expect to see sandpipers at the water's edge, so a fencepost in the middle of farmland seems strange.

But, although they are in a shorebird family, Upland Sandpipers prefer open country with tall grasses. Their core range and habitat is in the northern midwest U.S.

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument

During the 1890s, scientists re-discovered what the Lakota Sioux already knew existed: bones preserved in one of the most complete Miocene mammal sites in the world. Many of the fossils were found at dig sites on two hills that dominate the landscape -- Carnegie and University Hills, named for two of the sponsors of the digs -- the Carnegie Museum and the University of Nebraska. The American Museum of Natural History was also involved, but somehow didn't net a hill name in its honor.

Ancient mammals found here

Some of the early finds puzzled explorers for years – they were large corkscrew-shaped objects known as daemonelix and commonly called “devil’s corkscrew” that were much harder than the surrounding earth.

Photo: Agate Fossil Beds

After puzzling and puzzling about what they were, one yielded a fossilized Palaeocastor – a type of land beaver – inside. The daemonelix turned out to be a burrow that had been filled in with sediment that hardened and create a cast.

Palaeocastor in a daemonelix

Fossils from Agate Fossil Beds, which date from about 20 million years ago, are among some of the best specimens of Miocene mammals.

Menocera hunting a Daphoenodon

They include: Miohippus, an ancestor of the modern horse; Menocera, a pony-sized rhinoceros; Daphoenodon (Amphicyon), a beardog; Daeodon (Dinohyus), a giant pig-like ungulate; Stenomylus, a gazelle-like camelid; and Moropus, a relative of rhinos and horses.

The most common were the Menoceras rhinoceros, the Moropus rhino/horse and the Daeodon pig.

At the time these mammals lived, what is now the Great Plains region was drying out after being submerged. Flowering plants proliferated, and the abundant animals, including birds, responded to a new food source: grasslands that replaced forest and jungle. Although slightly different anatomically, some of these creatures resemble animals that are alive today, often with a bizarre twist.

The property was originally the Agate Springs Ranch, a working cattle ranch, owned by Capt. James Cook. An avid collector of Plains Indians artifacts, Cook donated more than 500 items to the National Monument.

Photo: Agate Fossil Beds

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument was authorized in 1965 but was not established until 1997.

When we visited, we watched the film and looked at the displays in the Visitors Center. We also had a picnic lunch in a very nice covered table almost completely enclosed by bushes that were absolutely covered in Yellow-Orange Meadowhawk Dragonflies.

Yellow-Orange Meadowhawk

We didn’t walk any of the many trails at Agate Fossil Beds; it was too hot. And, as I said, we had to get home.

Home

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. We did pass some beautiful yellow and green fields that just screamed Midwest! So, so pretty.

The juxtaposition of green and yellow is stunning

We passed through a medium-level storm in Cheyenne. I think it rains every time I drive through Cheyenne! Fortunately, there wasn’t any hail this time. My car still has scars from the last time!

A Great Trip

To recap, it was a lovely trip that included:

Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota ...