Burrows often contain concentrations of fossils. Studies in the Russian Arctic on 30000 year old ground squirrel burrows discovered not only seeds and fruits, but also leaves, stems, hair and bones of mammals, egg shells, fly pupae, beetles (Gubin et al. 2001). A younger site in Germany provided information on changing animal fauna over 10000 years (Heinrich 1977).
Particularly carnivore dens concentrate bones of small animals, which are commonly not preserved as fossils. One such a den from the early Tertiary of Colorado yielded a record of previously unknown small mammals, lizards, and birds (Turnbull 1975).Identifying the animal
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