Bighorn Sheep Skull (Ovis canadensis Shaw)

Named for the many bighorn sheep skulls found inside by an early explorer of Lava Beds National Monument, Judson Dean Howard (J.D. Howard), Ovis Cave provides today's visitors with a unique underground landscape to explore. After the discovery of 36 bighorn skulls in the cave in the 1890s, J.D. Howard began referring to the cave site as ”Ovis Cave” (Ovis is the Latin word for sheep). Known as ”the father of Lava Beds,” J.D. Howard explored and named over 120

caves and geologic features at Lava Beds, and was instrumental in getting the site designated as a national monument. The sheep skull pictured above is one of the many sheep skulls in the
park's collection, and represents some of the park's earliest documented archeological, historical, and cultural studies of Lava Beds that eventually resulted in a formal museum collection starting approximately in the 1930s.