An ancient sloth and a small deer are some of the new finds discovered Thursday in the Ziegler Reservoir outside of Snowmass Village. That brings the total number of different animals found there up to five: Columbian mammoth, American mastodon, Ice Age bison, giant ground sloth and a deer-like animal.

“It is truly uncommon to get all parts of a fossil econsystem preserved in one place,” said Dr. Ian Miller, the museum’s curator of paleontology and chair of the Earth Science Department. “Instead of having just a piece of the ecosystem to tell the story, you’ve got all aspects of it. It’s one of the most exciting scientific discoveries I’ve ever worked on.”

A team of archeologists from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science turned out for a press conference Friday morning in Snowmass Village to discuss the ongoing work at the reservoir site. To date, parts of five different mastodons have been discovered; Thursday’s finds include the horn and some bones of an Ice Age bison or bis