A huge mammoth jaw, at least 10,000 years old, was pulled out of a river in Florida (photo)

Fossil hunter John Kreatsoulas made a surprising discovery while diving in the Pease River near Arcadia, Florida. He found a fossilized mammoth jaw.

At first, Kreatsoulas thought it was a log, but upon closer inspection, he realized that it was a large lower jaw. He doesn't know exactly how old the specimen is, but he believes it could be at least 10,000 years old, according to the Live Science Newsletter.

Read also: Human remains 10,000 years old discovered in Vietnam for the first time (photo)

Kreatsoulas plans to take the jawbone for cleaning and analysis to experts in Tampa, who will be able to determine the age of the fossils using radiocarbon dating.

It is not known for certain what species of mammoth the fossil belonged to, but Colombian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) inhabited North America - and as far south as Costa Rica - during the Pleistocene era (2.6 million years to 11,700 years ago).

The Colombian mammoths went extinct between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. High temperatures caused a loss of habitat for this megafauna, which, combined with human hunting, led to a significant population decline.

This is not the first time that mammoth fossils have been found in the Florida Keys. In 2021, divers found a 1.2-meter-long mammoth leg bone in the water. Meanwhile, in northern Florida, researchers have unearthed a 5.5-million-year-old "cemetery" of gomphoters, a four-beaked relative of modern elephants that probably drowned in a prehistoric river there.

As a reminder, the remains of a woman who gave birth after death were found in Finland.

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