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Ice Age Animals

Ice age Beringia was home to a diverse, and yet unique, mix of strange and familiar animals. During the cold glacial times, icons like the woolly mammoth, steppe bison and scimitar cat roamed the treeless plains alongside caribou, muskox and grizzly bears. In still older times, where temperatures were similar to today, giant beavers, mastodons and camels browsed the interglacial forests. These animals and many more were found in Beringia.

Ground Sloth
Full-grown Jefferson’s ground sloths could be up to 3 metres long—much bigger and heavier than a modern bear.
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Interglacial

Jefferson's Ground Sloth

Giant Short-faced Bear
Giant short-faced bears were the largest carnivorous land mammal to ever live in North America. They were roughly 1.5 times the size of today’s Kodiak grizzly bear.
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Glacial

Giant Short-faced Bear

Yukon Horse
Many people are surprised to learn that horses first appeared in North America. In fact, the earliest known ancestral horse in the world lived in North America 30-50 million years ago.
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Glacial

Yukon Horse

Woolly Mammoth
An adult woolly mammoth stood over 3 metres tall and consumed 200 kilograms of grass each day.
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Glacial

Woolly Mammoth

Arctic Ground Squirrel
Arctic ground squirrels were well equipped for survival in glacial times. They spend the long winters hibernating underground.
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Glacial

Arctic Ground Squirrel

Grey Wolf
Grey wolves are the most commonly found carnivore fossils in Beringia.
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Glacial

Grey Wolf

Western Camel
It is a little known fact that camels originated in North America.
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Interglacial

Yukon's Camels

American Lion
Beringian lions were the largest and most abundant cat of ice age Yukon, inhabiting the territory from around 125,000 to 13,000 years ago.
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Glacial

Beringian Lion

American Mastodon
Mastodons and mammoths were not the same animals. Mastodons were shorter and stockier than mammoths, with shorter, straighter tusks.
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Interglacial

American Mastodon

Giant Beaver
Growing up to two metres long and weighing up to 100 kilograms, the giant beaver is the largest rodent known from ice age North America.
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Interglacial

Giant Beaver

Saiga Antelope
Saiga antelope may be one of the strangest looking ice age critters. With their large, bulbous noses and long curved horns, they appear more like an animal from Dr.
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Glacial

Saiga Antelope

Scimitar cat
Weighing in around 200 kilograms, scimitar cats were a formidable predator in ice age Yukon. They had slender limbs, stocky bodies with powerful necks, and short tails.
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Glacial

American Scimitar Cat

Flatheaded Peccary
Flat-headed peccary were about the size of European wild boar, with small brains and a strong sense of smell.
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Interglacial

Flat-headed Peccary

Caribou
Caribou evolved in Beringia up to 2 million years ago. The oldest known caribou remains in the world were found in Yukon, dating back 1.6 million years.
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Interglacial

Caribou

Walrus
Not all ice age animals lived on land. In fact, the Ice Age had a dramatic effect on walrus populations in North America.
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Interglacial

Walrus

Irish Elk
Elk fossils found in Europe date back 400,000 years, but elk didn’t cross the land bridge into North America until about 15,000 years ago.
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Interglacial

Elk

Steppe-Bison
Steppe bison first crossed Beringia around 160,000 years ago, making their way from Europe and Asia to North America.
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Glacial

Steppe Bison