At the end of October, a Mississippi resident made a rare discovery along the Mississippi River that was 11,000 years old.
According to the news outlet, it's the fourth fossil of the ancient American lion.
A local resident stumbled on a huge tooth in the sand and decided to take the find to a Mississippi Fossil and Artifact Symposium and Exhibition event.
I could tell from the teeth that it was a fragment of a carnivore's jaw, but I didn't think it was a lion. I wouldn't let myself believe that it was correct.
The large American lion is the species that experts confirmed it was. According to the National Park Service, it was the largest big cat on the planet and could weigh up to 1000 pounds.
It has been gone for 11,000 years.
Shipping was disrupted in several states due to low water levels on the Mississippi River.
According to the most recent climate report, some locations along the river reported their lowest water levels in a decade, while barges have been unable to clear parts of the river.
The fossil is from the past when the river was dry. There was a sunken ship on the river's banks in October.
The remains are thought to be from a ferry that sank in the late 19th or early 20th century after it was damaged in a storm.
Small parts of the ship emerged from low waters in the 1990s, despite the fact that this was the first time the ship has been exposed.
"At that time, the vessel was completely full of mud and there was mud all around it so only the very tip tops of the sides were visible," said Chip McGimsey, Louisiana's state archaeologist.
McGimsey said that they had to move a lot of dirt to get some narrow windows to open.
According to a growing body of research, rising global temperatures due to burning of fossil fuels increase the amount of water in the world's oceans.
Insider was told that as climate change warms the planet, more remnants of the past could be found.
The original article was published by Business Insider.
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