Toxodon was a strange, large mammal endemic to South America that went extinct only about 11,000 years ago. It superficially resembled hippos and (hornless) rhinos, and was in fact very distantly related to horses. Alongside this mamma and her calf are rheas and a termite mound, common features of central South America that remain to this day.
A fan mussel among the seagrass it calls home (Arnaud Abadie on Flickr)
The fan mussels (Pinna nobilis) are a species of enormous mussel which live in seagrass beds of the Mediterranean Sea. They can grow to nearly 4 feet long (though most are 1-2 feet in size at maturity), and live with most of their bodies protruding straight up out of the sediment, anchored down into the sand with long…
Condor 606 was born in Big Sur and regularly flies back and forth between there and Pinnacles.
Visiting Pinnacles National Park the other day, we were lucky to spot California condors several times. Their wingspan can reach up to 3 m. Their graceful flight is a sight to behold as they ride the warm updrafts of between the pinnacles of rock in the park, with their secondary feathers bending up…
This is an Irish Elk. It roamed the plains of Eurasia during the Pleistocene. It stood 7 feet high at the shoulder and it’s antlers measured up to 12 feet from tip to tip. It went extinct at the end of the last ice age.
The “leaf-like” profile created by the high, laterally compressed neck feature here puts me in mind of phasmid or chameleon-style camouflage….I can almost see it rocking in the breeze.
BOTTOM: Speaking of chameleons–beautifully chameleon-like color and textures applied to the anomalous short-necked sauropod Brachytrachelopan.
Another workmanlike CGI illustration of Brachiosauruses on the beach, from Josh Gregory’s imaginatively titled Brachiosaurus. I don’t know why this particular juxtaposition appeals to me so, but notably I do see it a lot in kids’ books.
The cave bear lived in Europe and Asia and evolved from the Ursus Deningeri (Deninger’s bear) 1,8 million to 100,000 years ago into the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). This bear was named the cave bear because most of the fossils have been found inside caves. Whether this bear spent more time inside caves than bear species still alive until this day is not fully clear. Fossils in caves have a much better chance to be preserved.
Just like the woolly mammoth, the first fossils of the cave bear were confused with other species. The fossils were first described in a book ‘newly discovered zoolites of unknown four footed animals’ by Johann Friedrich Esper back in 1774. The bones clearly confused scientists of the 18th century who thought it might belong to a species of canids, felids, apes or even a mythological creature such as a dragon. The writer of the book, Friedrich Esper, believed the fossils belonged to polar bears.
It wasn’t until 20 years after the publication of the book that an anatomist, Johann Christian Rosenmüller, finally gave the species its name. Most of the cave bear fossils have been found in Austria and unfortunately during ww1, the Austrians started using earth from caves in order to win phosphate. This process destroyed a lot of the original prehistoric cave environments so that only the cave bear bones remained.
The cave bear itself was absolutely massive. The shoulder height of a cave bear could reach an average of 1,31 meters and when it stood on two legs, it could reach a height of 3,5 meters. It’s the largest of all the bear species, slightly larger than the polar bear which is nowadays the largest bear species. A male cave bear could weigh about 600kg to even 1000kg while females are a lot smaller, only about 250kg.
Also the teeth of the cave bear were much larger than those of modern day bear species. This means they probably didn’t have a full meat diet as you would expect from a predator of this size. The big molars of the cave bear were used to process a more plant-like diet such as tubers. Some scientists even go as far as saying that the cave bear was a solely herbivory animal. There is some evidence to back this theory up since the isotopes of cave bear bones show low levels of nitrogen-15 which is the usual case in herbivores, the levels of nitrogen inside cave bear remains are about the same as those of the woolly mammoth who also was a herbivory animal.
It is however also possible that perhaps the main diet might have been vegetarian but that they did scavenge cadavers for some meat. Some scientists suggest that the cave bears ate their own kind, the ones that died during hibernation. Judging by bear behaviour in modern times, it is very well possible that the cave bear was mostly vegetarian with occasionally some meat in its diet.
Early humans and cave bears had an interesting relationship with each other that is still not fully understood. An interesting example of this is the discovery inside the Drachenloch cave in Switzerland. Inside this cave, a low wall was found covered with several cave bear skulls. The positioning of the remains suggest a human touch which leads to a theory that early humans such as the Neanderthals worshiped the cave bear in a form of primitive religion. It is however impossible to proof this theory.
The Drachenloch cave isn’t the only cave with such a discovery. The famous Chauvet cave has a skull chamber in which a cave bear skull has been placed on top of a rock resembling an altar. This skull has been placed there around 30,000 years ago so it might have been part of a religious ritual of our own species, homo sapiens.
Another strange discovery was made in Regourdou, France. A rectangular pit was found which contained the remains of 20 bears covered by a slap. The pit was located next to another pit which contained the body of a Neanderthal buried there with objects such as a cave bear bone, scrapers and flakes, these are Neanderthal grave offerings and their burial rites might have included the worship of the cave bear.
The Basura cave in Italy has a stalagmite inside that vaguely resembles a cave bear in appearance. This stalagmite is surrounded by cave bear bones which seems to have been dropped here on purpose by Neanderthals for a ritualistic purpose. Yet again we can not be fully certain about this but the fact that several caves have been found with purposefully placed cave bear bones, does suggest that both Neanderthals and us held the cave bear in high esteem.
Unfortunately the cave bear went extinct somewhere around 20,000-12,000 years ago. This is slightly earlier than the extinction of most of the other megafauna such as the woolly mammoth. Scientists believed that the cave bear went extinct because of its diet. Due to climate change, the plants eaten by the cave bears slowly disappeared which meant that the bears themselves also disappeared. It would explain why the cave bear disappeared before the woolly mammoth.
Another theory suggests that overhunting by humans might have been the cause but this seems unlikely. Cave bears were most likely avoided by early hunters, they were simply too dangerous to hunt thanks to their massive size.
An interesting fact to notice is that the species declined rapidly around 40,000 years ago. This is around the same time when modern humans appeared in Europe and Asia. Maybe humans and cave bears were competing with each other on habitats, the caves or it was a combination of both climate change and the arrival of modern humans. Even though the species has sadly disappeared, a completely preserved cave bear cub was discovered last year in Siberia. Maybe some day in the future we can bring the species back, a cave bear would surely be magnificent to behold.
Here are images of: Depiction of a cave bear from the game Far Cry Primal, Skeleton of a cave bear photographed by myself in the Naturalis, Leiden, the Netherlands, Cave bear skull in the Chauvet cave, Cave bear cub found in Siberia in 2020, A cave bear altar? found in Montespan cave,
The Rouffignac cave is a cave located in the department of Dordogne in France and is also known as the cave of the hundred mammoths thanks to its 255 cave paintings of which 62% represent a mammoth. The cave itself is big, it has over 10 kilometers of underground passageways and shafts that lead to even deeper levels not fully explored. In total, 12 kilometers of the cave has been explored and visitors can take a tour on a train that will take them about 2km far into the cave.
Earliest mentions of the cave dates back to 1575 when writer and painter François Belleforest described strange paintings and footprints of various animals in his work ‘Cosmographie Universelle’. During the 19th century, the cave became a tourist attraction because of the paintings but nobody yet realised that these paintings were actually made during the paleolithic era.
It wasn’t until the 1950’s when several researchers (Romain Robert, Louis-René Nougier, Charles and Louis Plassard) entered the cave and noticed that the paintings inside were of great historical value. In 1957 the cave became a listed site and it was finally confirmed that the art inside, is in fact prehistoric in nature and thus of incredible archeological value.
The art inside the cave is not the oldest art found in Europe. The art of Rouffignac is dated back to about 13,000 years ago from the Magdalenian culture, in comparison the art of Chauvet cave is about 30,000 years old. What is quite fascinating is the fact that 62% of all the paintings, 158 in total, represent a mammoth. There are 29 depictions of bison, 16 of a horse, 12 of an ibex, 11 of a rhino, 6 of a snake, 4 of a human, 1 of a bear and 14 abstract paintings.
Some of the art has been made in quite difficult positions inside the cave, it’s amazing to think that humans were able to explore this cave 13,000 years ago and make these pieces of art. There must have been a reason behind all of this art because no one would enter this cave that deeply to create art in pitch black and dangerous surroundings in prehistoric times, even with all of our current gear and knowledge humans wouldn’t even do this for fun in the 21st century. The possible spiritual meaning behind cave art still remains a mystery yet an incredibly fascinating topic to explore.
Why is there such an abundance of mammoth cave art in Rouffignac? We actually have no idea why. Perhaps our ancestors viewed the woolly mammoth as a particularly sacred animal, maybe their spiritual beliefs were based on the spirit of the mammoth. These are just wild guesses because in truth, it is impossible to find any archeological evidence inside this cave that explains the reason why there are so many depictions of a mammoth. One thing that is certain is that the mammoth continues to fascinate human beings until this very day, I myself got a tattoo of a woolly mammoth based on art found inside this cave.
The woolly mammoth is a species of mammoth that unfortunately went extinct around 10,000 years ago, this animal is also seen as the symbol of ancient European ice ages. Small populations of woolly mammoths continued to survive on the Wrangel Island in Russia until as recent as 4,000 years ago. There were still some mammoths left when the great pyramids in Egypt were being built.
Even though all mammoth species are now extinct, their legacy continues to live on in the minds of modern humans. Their bones and tusks are still being used until this very day. The indigenous cultures of Siberia and North America still contain myths explaining the presence of mammoths and other extinct megafauna. Whether these myths are based on ancient memories of ancestors who have witnessed these animals or based on found remains throughout the centuries is not fully known.
Indigenous Siberian people believe that the remains of woolly mammoths were once part of an animal able to crawl underground, also an explanation why earthquakes happen. If a mammoth was unfortunate enough to crawl upwards and reach the surface, it would die. This is one of the legends surrounding the woolly mammoth that has survived until this day. Indigenous north American people had similar stories of mammoths living underground. Another native-American legend, of the Inupiat people, suggests that mammoths were primordial giants.
Long before the western world started to seriously study ancient extinct species, parts of mammoth remains, such as their tusks, were imported into Europe. This precious ivory is still worth an incredible amount of money but back in the medieval ages, no one thought this ivory came from an extinct species. Europeans had several explanations for woolly mammoth remains: they probably belonged to an escaped herd of elephants during the Roman republic, they were the actual war elephants of Hannibal, they are simply just elephants who wandered a bit too far north or they are the victims of the great flood described in the biblical book genesis.
The first person who recognized that these remains were actually part of an extinct species of elephant was Hans Sloane back in 1728. Sloane published a paper in that year what can now be considered as the first scientific research on the woolly mammoth. 10 years later another researcher, Johann Philipp Breyne, also researched mammoth fossils and came to the conclusion that they are a species of elephant. Both men were however clueless on how these ‘elephants’ got in Siberia and proposed the theory that they were victims of Noah’s flood.
It took until 1796 when these mysterious 'elephant’ remains from Siberia were finally identified as a completely different species, not modern elephants as thought before but an entirely new species. French anatomist Georges Cuvier was the first to identify the woolly mammoth as a mammoth species and the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach gave the species its official scientific name 'Mammuthus Primigenius’.
In 1806, a Russian botanist Mikhail Adams journeyed towards northeastern Siberia to witness the most complete woolly mammoth skeleton found back in 1799. (the most complete of that time period, more complete and intact mammoth remains have been found since 1799) It was the first time that the entire skeleton, without the tusks, was found. The remains were brought back to St Petersburg and an attempt was made to reassemble the skeleton. There was however one problem, no one knew how the tusks would have looked like so the tusks were mounted on the wrong sides so that the curves went outwards instead of inwards. This mistake wasn’t corrected until 1899 and is still visible in the famous sketch of Adams mammoth.
Nowadays multiple subspecies of mammoth have been discovered, the woolly mammoth is just one of the mammoth species that once roamed the earth. It took until 2005 before researchers were finally able to complete a full mitochondrial genome profile of the woolly mammoth. 10 years later in 2015 it was confirmed that the closest living relative of the woolly mammoth is the asian elephant. If an attempt is ever made to bring back the woolly mammoth, our modern asian elephants can help us out. But the subject of bringing the woolly mammoth back to life again is a topic for another post.
Here are images of: Woolly mammoth by Mihin89, The Adams mammoth right now, with the tusks in the correct position, Sketch of Adams mammoth with the tusks on the wrong side,
AbstractThe late Quaternary megafauna extinction was a severe global-scale event. Two factors, climate change and modern humans, have received broad support as the primary drivers, but their absolute and relative importance remains controversial. …
We present, to our knowledge, the first global analysis of this extinction based on comprehensive country-level data on the geographical distribution of all large mammal species (more than or equal to 10 kg) that have gone globally or continentally extinct between the beginning of the Last Interglacial at 132 000 years BP and the late Holocene 1000 years BP, testing the relative roles played by glacial–interglacial climate change and humans.
We show that the severity of extinction is strongly tied to hominin palaeobiogeography, with at most a weak, Eurasia-specific link to climate change. …
IMAGE Global maps of late Quaternary [a, b] large mammal extinction severity, [c] hominin palaeobiogeography, [d] temperature anomaly and [e] precipitation velocity. [More detail here…]
Three-time World Taxidermy Champion Ken Walker recreating an extinct Irish elk using DNA studies and Paleolithic cave paintings for reference. Apparently this took 4 elk hides to make!
A book recommended by fieryflyingpanda (thanks!) that talks about this mount and others done by Ken Walker:
This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees’ range has shrunk by 90%.
(my own photos)
Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.
Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would’ve penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you’ve observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.
You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:
It’s true that such adaptations are now anachronistic; they have lost their relevance. But the trees have been slow to catch on; a natural consequence of the pace of evolution. For a tree that lives, say, 250 years, 13,000 years represents only 52 generations. In an evolutionary sense, the trees don’t yet realize that the megafauna are gone.
The trees don’t yet realize their partners are gone.
![mucholderthen: Global late Quaternary [132,000 to 1,000 years ago] Megafauna Extinctions linked to](https://64.media.tumblr.com/104acfb5a9a09f60a9a4e69dfbe911da/tumblr_n8s612mmnq1rhb9f5o2_r1_1280.jpg "mucholderthen: Global late Quaternary [132,000 to 1,000 years ago] Megafauna Extinctions linked to")
