Cave Bacon Bacon formations in the cavern are a result of the drapery formation forming with three distinct colors. As water travels through the rock above the cavern, it picks up minerals and impurities, staining the crystals whatever color it may have picked up. Bacon is not just at Kartchner Caverns, it is present in caves around the world.

Kartchner Caverns received its name from the name of the family that owned the land that the cave resides. Randy and Gary brought it to the attention of the family in 1978. After that, Gary, Randy, and the Kartchner family kept the caverns a secret for another ten years until the state purchased the land from the Kartchner family and the caverns became the 25th State Park of Arizona.

Kubla Khan

Kubla Khan is a massive 58-foot-tall column. It is the largest known column in the state of Arizona. The Throne Room in which it sits received its name from a poem named Kubla Khan. In the poem it describes an underground mystical kingdom “Xanadu” ruled by Kubla Khan. Xanadu was the secret name Randy and Gary used to talk about the cave so no one else could find it and destroy it.

1) The reason Kartchner Caverns closes the Big Room is because ___________ use it to give birth

and raise babies. 2) The type of bats at Kartchner Caverns are called __________ Velifer. 3) Baby bats are called __________. 4) Female bats gathering to have babies is called a _________ roost. 5) The bats at Kartchner Caverns have their babies during the ___________ season. 6) Bats are ___________, which means they are warm-blooded like humans. 7) Bats flap their wings _________ times in five seconds in order to fly. 8) Bats at Kartchner Caverns eat about _________ their weight in insects each night.

M H O R K D L Q I

A A Y E V G W C U

N L T S F M T J P

S F X E N B H A R

L Q I U R P U P S

A X S F E N R Y I

M T P A M Q I Q T

M S N L M R L T O

A O E X U N E I Y

M B A T S A B F M

Answer Key

MYOTIS

BATS SUMMER

PUPS SIXTY HALF

MAMMALS MATERNITY

Gary Tenen & Randy Tufts Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen were two University of Arizona students as well as avid cavers in Southeastern AZ. It was their goal to find a pristine cave system and protect it.

Arizona Sunrise That first day in the cave, Randy and Gary just sat there in amazement at what they had just found. The two discoverers spent a couple hours in what they would eventually call the “Big Room”, and decided to pack up and come back later.

It was dark when they emerged from the sinkhole. As Randy and Gary sat outside the sinkhole they noticed how close they were to the highway. Both of them could see and hear the cars driving by. It occurred to the two cavers that if they had found the cave that easily, someone else could also. From that moment, Gary and Randy knew they were going to protect this cave from being vandalized and misused like several other cave systems in the area.

DOWN 1) The Shasta Ground Sloth was a ______________ and ate yuccas, agaves, grasses, and prickly pear. 3) Randy and Gary originally thought the sloth bones were American _________ bones. 5) Bits and pieces of other animals were washed into the cave, including a bear tooth, and an extinct __________ skull. 6) Shasta Ground Sloths used their tail like a __________ to help stand upright. ACROSS 2) Shasta Ground Sloths grew to more than _________ feet from the tip of their nose to the tip of their tail. 4) Shasta Ground Sloths weighed around _________ hundred pounds. 7) A modern ___________ was the only other full skeleton found in the cave.

1

2

5 6

3 4

7

ANSWER KEY TRIPOD BISON SEVEN FOUR

COYOTE HORSE HERBIVORE