Drought reveals rare American lion fossil in dried up Mississippi River

[Tanuki]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/drought-reveals-rare-american-lion-fossil-in-dried-up-mississippi-river-180981166/

.... "Paleontologists now say the tooth—which is attached to part of a fossilized jaw bone—once belonged to a large American lion (Panthera atrox), a species that has been extinct for roughly 11,000 years. The big cats prowled throughout North America during the Pleistocene, first appearing at least 340,000 years ago, but fossilized evidence of their existence in the eastern United States is extremely rare. Prewitt’s tooth is now just the fourth specimen found in Mississippi.
....
Scientists estimate American lions were roughly 25 percent larger than today’s African lions, per the National Park Service. They stood four feet tall at the shoulders and measured five to eight feet in length. Some of the biggest American lions may have topped 1,000 pounds, while others weighed between 500 and 800 pounds.

“Because the American lion is just a different subspecies, but the same species as the African lion, it would have looked like a larger version of the African lion,” says Kate Lyons, a paleoecologist at the University of Nebraska, to Newsweek’s Pandora Dewan. “However, we don't know whether or not it had a mane like African lions, as preservation of things like skin or hair are very rare in the fossil record.”
....
Prewitt, who is from Oxford, Mississippi, made the discovery near Rosedale, a small town on the Mississippi-Arkansas border about 140 miles northwest of Jackson. But up and down the typically mighty river, drought is causing the waters to dry up. Low water levels are delaying barge traffic and threatening drinking water in some places; they’ve also revealed the remains of a 100-plus-year-old ferry and a more modern sunken casino boat.

The river basin really needs rain, but meteorologists are predicting another dry winter with warmer-than-normal temperatures in southern and eastern regions, as the country enters a third straight year of La Niña."....(more)

[Celerity]

1. pic

[Submariner]

3. I'm sure if DU was around during the Pleistocene

we would all be enjoying Siwsan posts about these baby American lions wandering into her yard to be saved. And probably dealing with one ornery lion kitty that keeps trying to eat its siblings.

[cab67]

6. for what it's worth...

The American lion is now regarded as a species unto itself (Panthera atrox), and not a subspecies of the modern lion (Panthera leo).

(I'm a paleontologist/evolutionary biologist; my research focus isn't on mammals, but I have several close colleagues who specialize in predatory mammals such as big cats. This is what they tell me.)

The same is true, by the way, of the "cave lions" from Ice Age Eurasia; they used to be called Panthera leo spelea, but they're now just Panthera spelea.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Dig up the fossils and artifacts while they can be! . . .nt

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

4. Washed down the Miss. river drainage when the end of ice age glaciers melted into The Flood?

[xmas74]

5. Every time I see Rosedale I think of Robert Johnson. Nt

[Duppers]

7. The Crossroads 👍

[Duppers]

8. I fear La Nia may...

Become permanent.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. These kitties were not suitable for today's Internet memes.

[Icanthinkformyself]

10. The irony of climate change

The shoreline is disappearing under water while the rivers dry up. I fear we.ve waited too late. But, being humans, that's what we do. We kick cans down the road waiting for the next generation to make up for our failures. As a boomer, I apologize to the next generations. We screwed the pooch as they say.

[multigraincracker]

13. I'm doing my part.

My carbon footprint ends in 20 years. I didn’t have any kids.

[aggiesal]

11. Image of location ...

Barges stranded by low water in the Mississippi River in Rosedale, Mississippi, a small town near where the lion fossil was found

[MontanaMama]

12. My neighbor just lost his dog to a regular mountain lion...

I can’t imagine seeing this thing running around.

[Tanuki]

14. Just think...it was 25% larger than an African lion, and it had longer legs,

which would have allowed it to run faster in pursuit of prey!

😱 🦁

[NickB79]

15. Humans wiped out so much megafauna

It saddens me so much to think where I live in the Midwest could have been like the Serengeti if not for humans hunting the mammoths and slothes to death.