Evidence of these Ice Age carnivores is extremely rare in the eastern U.S., but drought has revealed fossils of the American lion in the Mississippi.
Thanks to a lack of rainfall in the Ohio and Upper Mississippi River Valleys this year, the Mississippi River reached a historic low in October. That has meant more threats to drinking water, slowed shipping traffic during its busiest season, and … a treasure trove of archaeological and paleontological finds?
A Civil War-era cartridge box plate turned up near Memphis; farther downriver, in Baton Rouge, the remains of a made an eye-catching appearance. But perhaps the most exciting discovery was made near Rosedale, a small town about 140 miles northwest of Jackson, Mississippi.While exploring a newly exposed sandbar in the area on Oct. 29, Wiley Prewitt caught a rare glimpse of black teeth amid the gravelly sediment. “I knew immediately just by the shape of the teeth that it was a carnivore fossil,” heThree days later, he brought it to experts at the Mississippi Fossil and Artifact Symposium & Exhibition.
His verdict? Prewitt had stumbled across the partial jaw bone of an American lion , the largest extinct cat to live in North America during the last Ice Age. “We all know about those, but you never dream that you’re going to find one,”The American lion first appeared on the continent at least 340,000 years ago and has been extinct for roughly 10,000 years. The hulking carnivores actually belong to the same species as modern-day African lions.
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