What remained of the carnivore was discovered in Minnesota’s Tyson Spring Cave. Excavators had to create a tunnel to explore the Pleistocene deposit – the front entrance is underwater – and in doing so they found a partial skull of the “elk moose” Cervalces, a deer that sported an impressive set of antlers. Once inside, researchers found a partial skull, left shoulderblade, and right humerus of Homotherium scattered through the cave. These bones represent the first known record of the sabercat in the Great Lakes region.

Genetic evidence supported what the skeletal anatomy indicated. Widga and coauthors were able to obtain a 311 base pair chunk of mitochondrial DNA from the Tyson’s Spring Cave bones, and this genetic fragment was a