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Dire Wolves
The dire wolf (''Aenocyon dirus'' ) is an extinct canine. It is one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America, along with its extinct competitor ''Smilodon''. The dire wolf lived in the Americas and eastern Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs (125,000–9,500 years ago). The species was named in 1858, four years after the first specimen had been found. Two subspecies are recognized: ''Aenocyon dirus guildayi'' and ''Aenocyon dirus dirus''. The largest collection of its fossils has been obtained from the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. Dire wolf remains have been found across a broad range of habitats including the plains, grasslands, and some forested mountain areas of North America, the arid savanna of South America, and the steppes of eastern Asia. The sites range in elevation from sea level to . Dire wolf fossils have rarely been found north of 42°N latitude; there have been only five unconfirmed reports above this latitu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as Upper Pleistocene from a stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between c. 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago. The Late Pleistocene equates to the proposed Tarantian Age of the geologic time scale, preceded by the officially ratified Chibanian (formerly known as Middle Pleistocene) and succeeded by the officially ratified Greenlandian. The estimated beginning of the Tarantian is the start of the Eemian interglacial period ( Marine Isotope Stage 5). It is held to end with the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch began. The term Upper Pleistocene is currently in use as a provisional or "quasi-formal" designation by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). Although the three olde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, and its Greater Los Angeles, sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in Los Angeles Basin, a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bison Antiquus
''Bison antiquus'', the antique bison or ancient bison, is an extinct species of bison that lived in Late Pleistocene North America until around 10,000 years ago. It was one of the most common large herbivores on the North American continent during the late Pleistocene, and is a direct ancestor of the living American bison along with ''Bison occidentalis''.C. G Van Zyll de Jong , 1986, A systematic study of recent bison, with particular consideration of the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae Rhoads 1898), p.53, National Museum of Natural Sciences History The first described remains of ''Bison antiquus'' were collected at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky in Pleistocene deposits in the 1850s and only consisted of a fragmentary posterior skull and a nearly complete horn core. The fossil ( ANSP 12990) was briefly described by Joseph Leidy in 1852. Although the original fossils were fragmentary, a complete skull of an old male was discovered in southern California and were described as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mastodon
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals. They generally had a browsing diet, distinct from that of the contemporary Columbian mammoth, which tended towards grazing. ''M. americanum'', the American mastodon, and ''M. pacificus'', the Pacific mastodon, are the youngest and best-known species of the genus. Mastodons disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely believed to have been caused by a combination of climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene and overexploitation by Paleo-Indians. History A Dutch tenant farmer found the first recorded remnant of ''Mammut'', a tooth some in weight, in the village of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ground Sloth
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Caribbean ground sloths, the most recent survivors, lived in the Antilles, possibly until 1550 BCE. However, radiocarbon dating suggests an age of between 2819 and 2660 BCE for the last occurrence of '' Megalocnus'' in Cuba. Ground sloths had been extinct on the mainland of North and South America for 10,000 years or more. They survived 5,000–6,000 years longer in the Caribbean than on the American mainland, which correlates with the later colonization of this area by humans. Much ground sloth evolution took place during the late Paleogene and Neogene of South America, while the continent was isolated. At their earliest appearance in the fossil record, the ground sloths were already distinct at the family level. The presen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equus Occidentalis
''Equus occidentalis'' (commonly known as the western horse) was a Pleistocene species of horse, now extinct, that inhabited North America, specifically the Southwestern United States. This species represents the larger end of the prehistoric horse spectrum – it was about the size of a mustang, weighing up to . It was a stoutly built animal and resembled the extinct quagga or the modern plains zebra The plains zebra (''Equus quagga'', formerly ''Equus burchellii''), also known as the common zebra, is the most common and geographically widespread species of zebra. Its range is fragmented, but spans much of southern and eastern Africa south o ..., although it was not a close relative to either of these. References {{Taxonbar, from=Q5384754 Prehistoric mammals of North America Equus (genus) Taxa named by Richard Owen Fossil taxa described in 1863 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleistocene Megafauna
Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch. Pleistocene megafauna became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event resulting in substantial changes to ecosystems globally. The role of humans in causing Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions is controversial. Megafauna are any animals with an adult body weight of over . Pleistocene megafauna include the straight-tusked elephant, cave bear (''Ursus spelaeus''), interglacial rhinoceros ('' Stephanorhinus''), heavy-bodied Asian antelope ('' Spirocerus''), Eurasian hippopotamuses, woolly rhinoceros, mammoths, giant deer, sabre-toothed cat ('' Homotherium''), cave lion, and the leopard in Europe. Paleoecology The last glacial period, commonly referred to as the 'Ice Age', spanned 125,000 to 14,500 years ago and was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age which occurred during the final years of the Pleistocene epoch. The Ice Age reached its peak during t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canine Tooth
In mammalian oral anatomy, the canine teeth, also called cuspids, dog teeth, or (in the context of the upper jaw) fangs, eye teeth, vampire teeth, or vampire fangs, are the relatively long, pointed teeth. They can appear more flattened however, causing them to resemble incisors and leading them to be called ''incisiform''. They developed and are used primarily for firmly holding food in order to tear it apart, and occasionally as weapons. They are often the largest teeth in a mammal's mouth. Individuals of most species that develop them normally have four, two in the upper jaw and two in the lower, separated within each jaw by incisors; humans and dogs are examples. In most species, canines are the anterior-most teeth in the maxillary bone. The four canines in humans are the two maxillary canines and the two mandibular canines. Details There are generally four canine teeth: two in the upper (maxillary) and two in the lower (mandibular) arch. A canine is placed laterall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwestern Wolf
The northwestern wolf (''Canis lupus occidentalis''), also known as the Mackenzie Valley wolf, Alaskan timber wolf, or Canadian timber wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf in western North America. Arguably the largest grey wolf subspecies in the world, it ranges from Alaska, the upper Mackenzie River Valley; southward throughout the western Canadian provinces, aside from prairie landscapes in its southern portions, as well as the Northwestern United States.Mech, L. David (1981), ''The wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species'', University of Minnesota Press, p. 352, Taxonomy This wolf is recognized as a subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' in the taxonomic authority '' Mammal Species of the World'' (2005). The subspecies was first written of by Scottish naturalist Sir John Richardson in 1829. He chose to give it the name ''occidentalis'' in reference to its geographic location rather than label it by its color, as it was too variable to warrant such.Richardson, J. (18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interior Alaskan Wolf
The Interior Alaskan wolf (''Canis lupus pambasileus''), also known as the Yukon wolf, is a subspecies of gray wolf native to parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, Interior Alaska and Yukon. Taxonomy It is recognized as a subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' in the taxonomic authority ''Mammal Species of the World (2005)''. It was first described in 1905 by the American zoologist Daniel Elliot as ''Canis pambasileus'' and with the name "autocrat timber wolf", based on a specimen from the Susitna River, Mount McKinley region, Alaska. Elliot distinguishes this wolf by the teeth in both jaws being large and heavy, and along with the skull exceed those of ''C. l. occidentalis'' (the Northwestern wolf) of a comparable body size. This wolf's coat ranges from black to white or a mix of both. In 1944, the American zoologist Edward Goldman recognized this wolf as ''Canis lupus pambasileus'' Elliot, 1905 and with the name "Interior Alaskan wolf". Physiology Description The wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly understood, comprise wild subspecies. The wolf is the largest extant member of the family Canidae. It is also distinguished from other '' Canis'' species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller ''Canis'' species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The banded fur of a wolf is usually mottled white, brown, gray, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white. Of all members of the genus ''Canis'', the wolf is most specialized for cooperative game hunting as demonstrated by its physical adaptations to tackling large prey, its more social nature, and its highly adv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beringia
Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States and the Yukon in Canada. The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range. At certain times in prehistory, it formed a land bridge that was up to wide at its greatest extent and which covered an area as large as British Columbia and Alberta together, totaling approximately . Today, the only land that is visible from the central part of the Bering land bridge are the Diomede Islands, the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George, St. Lawrence Island, St. Matthew Island, and King Island. The term ''Berin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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