Wyoming

Why Scientists Are Going Bonkers Over Four 38-Million-Year-Old…

Published

2 years ago

August 4, 2024

Why Scientists Are Going Bonkers Over Four 38-Million-Year-Old…

Around 38 million years ago, three small snakes slithered into a burrow seeking shelter from an apocalypse blanketing their world in volcanic ash. They never escaped, becoming entombed in the spot where they sought sanctuary in what would far into their future become Wyoming.

The misfortune of the small snakes has become a boon for paleontologists. New research published by a team from the University of Alberta has gained critical insight into the elusive history of prehistoric snakes.

“We’ve never had a good fossil record of these snakes,” said Michael Caldwell, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. “Here, we’ve got three really lovely specimens in one burrow, which gives us the information we need to investigate the origins and evolutionary history of an enigmatic group of living, burrowing snakes.”

White River Wyoming

The White River Formation is a layer of rock deposited during the Paleogene Period. Caldwell described it as a time of weird mammals and widespread volcanic activity in North America.

“The rocks of the White River Formation are 38 million years old, give or take a week or two,” he said. “It’s white because the sediments are heavily dominated by volcanic ash mixed with sand and fine-grained silt. Volcanic ash events were continual and caused several disasters.”

The fossils from the White River Formation are legendary. Large and small mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles are immaculately preserved in the ash-dominated rock.

“We find early dogs and cats, and saber-toothed relatives of cats that aren’t the same saber-tooths of the mammoth and mastodon,” Caldwell said. “Early bunny rabbits, all kinds of lizards, turtles, big-bodied mammals, early chameleons. The White River stuff is just amazing.”

There are legendary exposures of the White River Formation in Wyoming, particularly around Douglas. That’s where the University of Wyoming was excavating in 1976, when researchers found the three small snakes that are leaving a big impact.

Breithaupt’s Hibernating Snake

The fossilized snakes were collected with several other White River fossils during UW’s 1976 field project in Douglas. Aside from a 1997 paper written by paleontologist Brent Breithaupt, the UW Geological Museum’s collection manager at the time, the snakes haven’t garnered much attention until recently.

“I was talking with Brent, and he offered me the opportunity to work on the material in the early 2000s,” Caldwell said. “It took me a while to find a grad student to put on the project, and then it took us a while to get the paper written once she had graduated.”

That grad student, Jasmine Croghan, is the lead author of the paper describing the Wyoming White River snakes. The new species was called Hibernophis breithaupti, honoring Breithaupt and his original hypotheses about the unique discovery.

“Brent’s paper interpreted them as a hibernating assemblage of snakes,” Caldwell said. “That’s why we named them Hibernophis, the hibernating snake.”

A Den Of Beautiful Snakes

When describing a new species of prehistoric animal, the Holy Grail for paleontologists is a complete specimen.

Croghan, Caldwell and the other scientists studying the White River snakes had four of them, all nearly perfect skeletons to study, all collected near Douglas.

Snakes from the White River Formation aren’t well-known in the fossil record. Paleontologists have acquired most of their knowledge on their biology and evolutionary history from isolated fragments or individual bones.

“There are millions of isolated snake vertebrae in museum collections around the world, but very few articulated snakes,” he said. “As terrifying and robust as a snake might appear, they’re not held together very tightly. When they die, their bits and pieces wash about and they become disarticulated very easily.”

Caldwell said the three snakes found in the burrow, and a fourth specimen found nearby, are the most complete specimens of their kind ever found in the White River Formation.

“This particular trio of snakes are beautifully preserved,” he said. “We have almost everything in the anatomy of these little snakes, from the tips of their noses to the tips of their tails. They’re only missing the very tip of the tail, but everything else is there.”

Caldwell explained that “without going into the gory details about snake bony anatomy,” that Hibernophis is a kind of rubber boa, a smaller member of the boid family of snakes, which includes anacondas and boa constrictors.

While boids were and are widespread throughout the Americas, their evolutionary history remained an enigma until the discovery of Hibernophis. Wyoming’s White River snakes have provided critical insight into their evolutionary story.

Boid Behavior

While the anatomy and evolutionary significance of Hibernophis is exciting, the discovery revealed equally exciting information on the behavior of the 38-million-year-old snake. Caldwell said the preservation of three snakes in one burrow is significant.

“We have something that we never find in the fossil record,” he said. “Here we have three of these little rubber boas all curled up together in this ancient mammal burrow. One of them is substantially larger than the other two, so you can put on your natural history hat and start imagining what this could be.”

Whatever it was that drove the snakes into the burrow, which had been dug by a burrowing mammal, the snakes didn’t mind sharing the same space.

“We don’t know why they were there, but they were comfortable being together wherever they were,” he said. “Which means there is social behavior of snakes preserved in the fossil record.”

There’s a modern precedent for this behavior in snakes. Thousands of garter snakes in cold climates have been found living together in holes, entering a prolonged stupor while surviving from their collective body heat in what’s called a hibernaculum.

The three Hibernophis specimens may have perished in their hibernaculum, but more research would be needed to prove this. Regardless, Caldwell said the discovery is a rare and exciting instance of prehistoric behavior preserved in the fossil record.

“Most people think of reptiles as dim-witted, cold-blooded, not very social and with no maternal care,” he said. “The usual non-mammal analogies. Could this be a parent and a couple of young ones? Or is it possible that we’ve got a fright response and they’ve all ended up in a burrow together in the midst of a volcanic ash event? Or were they preparing for a cold weather season? We don’t know.”

Rediscovering Discoveries

The four specimens of Hibernophis breithaupti are in the collections of the UW Geological Museum. Caldwell and the other scientists briefly took the fossils to the University of Alberta for research and then to Austin, Texas, for a micro-CT scan.

“That’s how we found the third specimen,” he said. “It was inside the block and wasn’t clearly visible on the surface since it’s slightly below the other two.”

A major scientific discovery usually raises more questions than it answers. Thanks to the discovery of Hibernophis, Caldwell anticipates a flurry of scientific inquiries will be pursued.

“Every good answer just rattles a whole series of questions even harder,” he said. “Are there more specimens of Hibernophis? What would that have to say about the hypotheses that we’ve put forward in this recent publication? How does new material and new information change what we think we know about the interrelationships of these animals with all other birds and snakes, both fossil and living?

“You end up with more questions to ask from every answer that you put forward.”

For Caldwell, another major takeaway from the study of Hibernophis was its “rediscovery” in the collections of the UW Geological Museum. He believes more future paleontological discoveries will come from already-excavated fossils sitting on the dusty shelves of museums.

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of specimens hiding away in museum collections that have never been examined,” he said. “The next places to go are out into the field and down into museum collections. Several places have good White River Formation collections. We need to see if there’s anything in those collections that’s been missed.”

Yesterday And Today

While these Hibernophis died in an ash-filled burrow 38 million years ago, their boid descendants survived into the present day. Rubber boas are everywhere in Wyoming, although they can be hard to find.

“These boas alive today are part of that same radiation as are these fossil ones,” he said. “They’re small-bodied night feeders that are rather secretive and spend a lot of time hiding in the sand, so very few people see them. They’re common in the pet trade if you’re into a rubber boa that stays buried in the sand in your terrarium all day, which I’m not.”

The anatomy and behavior of Wyoming’s modern-day boids might shed more insight into the world of their prehistoric ancestors preserved in the White River Formation. Hibernophis has established itself as another jewel in the ornate crown of Wyoming paleontological discoveries.

“With Hibernophis, we fill in a science gap and get some insights on prehistoric snake behavior,” Caldwell said. “It’s a great story and three really lovely specimens.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.

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Wyoming

Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat

Published

11 hours ago

February 27, 2026

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Casper veteran David Giralt joins race for Wyoming U.S. House seat

CASPER, Wyo. — David Giralt, a Casper-raised military veteran and conservative Republican, has announced his candidacy for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The congressional seat is being vacated by Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman, who launched a campaign in December for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis. […]

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Wyoming

Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

Published

23 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate

It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.

WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026

Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.

CLASS 4A

Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)

CLASS 3A

Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)

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CLASS 4A

Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)

Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic

Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)

CLASS 3A

Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.

Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)

Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)

Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)

Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)

Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)

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CLASS 4A

Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)

Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)

CLASS 3A

#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)

#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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CLASS 3A

Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)

Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)

Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)

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4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne

Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com

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Wyoming

Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.

The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.

“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”

Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”

Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”

Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.

Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.

Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.

“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”

The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.

Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.

Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.

Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.

“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.

Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”

Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.

For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.

Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.

In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.

“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”

But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.

“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.

While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.

“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”

As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.

“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”

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