Where cars now drive along congested roads in the heart of modern Los Angeles, sabre-toothed cats once roamed. They stalked prey that ranged from hoofed mammals to creatures resembling elephants. The ferocious cats competed with dire wolves, American lions and short-faced bears.
During the Pleistocene, the geological period that began just over 2.5 million years ago, North America experienced a series of ice ages. During these freezes and thaws, giant mammals thrived in the woodlands and savannahs of Southern California. Primitive cheetahs chased antelope-like pronghorns over miles of grasslands, while mastodons roamed in dense herds.
But suddenly, around 11,000 years ago, almost all of these species died. Mammoths, giant sloths and camels all disappeared completely from the Americas. Only one large plant-eater remained, nearly unchanged since it first began racing through the south-west 30,000 years ago: the pronghorn.
Nobody is really sure what caused the extinction event. It has variously been blamed on fluctuating temperatures and climates, the encroachment of man, invasive plants or new bacteria, or all of the above.
Categories: Animals, Evolution, History, Nature & Wild Life, The Muslim Times