A very long time ago, it was so cold on earth that most of the water on earth was frozen as ice. This phase is known as the ‘Ice Age‘.
Now, most of that ice has gone away but back then the animals were very different than what we see today.
If you were to take an ice age tour around the world, you’d meet some wacky characters! Let’s see who you would meet.
Glyptodon – The glyptodon looked a lot like an armadillo (you can find them today also), and it also had armor, but it was the size of a car! Some glyptodons even had sharp spikes on their tails.
Mastodons and Mammoths – They were both relatives of today’s elephants. They’re all part of the group of animals that have a trunk for a nose.
They were enormous, had long, shaggy hair that kept them warm, and had trunks for nose. But the fun part is, in spite of being so enormous they were still smaller compared to today’s African elephant.
But there were also some differences between them. For example, mastodons had long, curvy tusks, whereas mammoths had curvy but pointed ones.
Smilodon – This also known as the Saber-toothed tiger. It was a big cat that lived in North and South America.
Smilodon had two giant teeth that were long and curved. These teeth enabled them to open their mouth really wide which helped them hunt down prays even larger than them.
Smilodons also had a tongue bone a lot like today’s lion which probably meant they could roar like one.
All these huge ice age animals stopped existing by around 10,000 years ago, and scientists are still trying to figure out why.
Some scientists think that humans could have hunted them to extinction, while others think that as the Earth warmed up, it became harder for these animals to find enough of the food they usually ate. Some believe it could also have been a combination of both!
There are some other animals as well but they were able to adapt to the changes in the earth’s climate and hence, did not become extinct.
You can refer to the video