The Pleistocene epoch began 1.8 million years ago and ended 11,550 years ago, marked by cooling and numerous ice ages. Unique animals included mammoths, saber-toothed cats, and giant ground sloths. The adaptive conditions favored size, leading to Pleistocene megafauna. Human hunting is believed to have caused the extinction of most megafauna.
The Pleistocene is the name of the geological epoch that began about 1,808,000 years ago and ended 11,550 years ago. The geologically most significant aspect of the Pleistocene is that it represented the continuation of a period of cooling that began several tens of millions of years ago and continues today.
Throughout the Pleistocene there were numerous ice ages, with ice sheets covering large parts of Eurasia and North America. The glaciers extended as far south as Hamburg, Germany, London, England, and Chicago in the United States. The Bering Straight was passable for long periods, called the Bering land bridge. This allowed for the mixing of Old World and New World species, including the migration of humans to the Americas.
Pleistocene animals were largely the same as today, with a few dozen exceptions. The exceptions, of course, are what make the subject interesting.
Unique animals of the Pleistocene include cave bears (short-faced bears), mammoths and mastodons (relatives of modern elephants), saber-toothed cats with tusks as long as swords, ferocious dire wolves, huge ground sloths, and relatives of armadillos called Glyptodon, which were the size of a Volkswagon Beetle. Many of these have been preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and hundreds of other fossil sites around the world.
In South America and Australia, there were flightless birds larger than humans, such as the Phorusrhacos, sometimes called “terror birds.” In Australia there were also carnivorous kangaroos, giant wombats like Diprotodon, the marsupial lion, and huge snakes and lizards. A giant lizard, megalania, would have easily been able to kill sheep and is the closest thing to a dragon seen on Earth since the age of the dinosaurs.
In general, the adaptive conditions of the Pleistocene favored size, which allowed animals to better retain body heat. As such, these large organisms have been dubbed Pleistocene megafauna.
Other important Pleistocene animals are early homonids, such as the genus Paranthropus, and human ancestors or relatives Homo habilis, Homo floresiensis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalis, and Homo heidelbergensis. Homo floresiensis and Homo neanderthalis became extinct more recently, with signs of the former existing as late as 12,000 years ago.
Most of the Pleistocene megafauna went extinct between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago. This can most likely be attributed to human hunting, a theory known as overkill. There is various evidence for this, such as the fact that megafauna in North America only became extinct when our ancestors crossed the Bering land bridge. Another theory blames a so-called hyperdisease, a terrible disease that has affected many different species, although this has less support than the overkill theory.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
