ExtinctZoo - Extinct Animals The Native Americans Saw

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

10,000 years ago of all kinds of titans roamed America, and I mean ALL KINDS, we're talking giant beavers, mammoths, wolves and more... Thankfully for us we no longer have to worry about a not-so friendly Smilodon jumping us while out running, but the same could not be said for the Native Americans, who not only lived alongside them but also managed to thrive.

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You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. When the first European settlers arrived in America, they quickly found out that life was not easy there and struggled to adapt to environments much different than those found in Europe. And they may have never gotten their feet under them if it wasn't for Native Americans,

who essentially taught them how to live off the lands, sharing their techniques on crop cultivation, food preservation, and hunting, among other things. Their sheer expertise was and still is impressive, with some stories even recalling how lone hunters were able to take down fully grown bison by themselves, with just a bow. This may sound like a legendary, bordering on fictitious feet, but perhaps it wasn't a big deal for these hunters, considering that their forefathers had a deal with now extinct animals that would put any creature in America today to shame when it comes to ferocity, size, or plain bizarreness. For now, scientists believe that

Paleo-Indian Native Americans first reached America as far back as 30,000 years ago, entering a world dominated by animals no longer around. Many looked quite similar to some creatures we still have, while others went extinct in the U.S., but can still be found elsewhere. And then there were those that not only are gone for good, but were unbelievable in being unlike anything today, making it a mystery of how Native Americans managed to thrive alongside them, and these are a few of the most iconic. The first animal up is a mammal, though it looked more like a dinosaur than anything else, and this is the glyptotherium.

From a distance, you could have confused it for some kind of ankylosaur, due to its extensive armoring that covered its body. But in reality, it was an armadillo of all things, belonging to the famous subfamily known as the Glyptodons. Members of this group are best known for their size, with individuals ranging from the size of a dog all the way to a small car. And Glyptotherium was among the biggest, with adults measuring over two meters or 6.5 feet in length, while weighing 1,165 kilograms or 2,568 pounds, equal to the weight of a large male giraffe. Its heavy nature was mostly due to its giant carapace that encompassed its body and was made of numerous osteoderms, aka bony plates.

This armored dome was one of the signature features seen in glypidons, yet glyphtherium was unique in that its armor was much taller and thicker compared to the others, with its osteoderms sometimes being two inches or five centimeters thick. That's eight times the thickness of the thickest tortoise shells today. This increased density gave the giant armadillo a massive boost in defense against predators, which was helped by the fact that its bony armor extended across its head and tail too. Surprisingly, despite its extensive defenses, the glyptotherium wasn't as cumbersome as you'd think, since its osteoderms were typically not very fused, and thus providing a modest degree of flexibility.

This hint of agility could have helped maneuvering away from danger, yet when forced to fight, Glyptotherium didn't just have its armor to rely on, but its tail too. Unlike the famous dodicarus, which had a spiked club tail, Glyptotherium straight up just had a tubed tail that was extremely bony and arranged in rings with pointed ends. At first, paleontologists believed its purpose was strictly for display, and while this is still an accepted use, there are now some ideas that the tail was possibly a weapon as well.

This thought stems from the tail rings, which were composed in mobile bands, meaning they could be easily maneuvered around despite being layered in osteoderms. On top of this, the tail muscle itself was quite powerful, indicating it could swing the tail with surprising speed, possibly up to 40 kilometers or 25 miles per hour, leading to the assumption that it might have whacked a few predators with it.

And it's clear that regardless of how it used its tail, the glyptotherium was very successful, as it could be found throughout Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina, up until around 15,700 years ago. Despite the success, the glyptotherium was still not an obstacle for Native Americans. In fact, evidence suggests that it was actually an occasional food item, with a fossil site in Texas, showing that humans had partially consumed a specimen's osteoderms, while another site bore numerous skulls that all had been butchered in a similar manner.

Additionally, we know that other glyptodons were hunted by indigenous populations too, including the better equipped Odiccarus, thus making the hunting of glyptotherium quite likely. However, not all animals that lived alongside Native Americans were ripe for the picking, as demonstrated by the dire wolf. Unlike its name would suggest, direwolves weren't really wolves, Rather, a unique genus of canines, scientifically known as Aenocian, who are more related to jackals than anything else. From a distance, though, you may still have confused them for a wolf, just a very large, reddish wolf. As on average, dire wolves were about as big as the largest recorded gray wolves, while possibly getting bigger with an estimated maximum size of 110 kilograms or 243 pounds.

This makes them the largest known canines and one of the biggest cannons overall. Surprise, surprise, they also had a terrifying bite to match its size, thanks to a powerful jaw indentition that had similar adaptations to those seen in hyenas, which all led to dire wolves possessing a record-breaking bite, with one study founding them to have had the strongest bite of any canine. This power is thought to have been an adaptation for taking down large prey, which included ground sloths, horses, pronghorns, bison, and mastodons. And to make these guys even more deadly, it's believed to have been a highly social pack hunter,

who lived in groups of between 12 and 30 individuals, making them one menacing animal to deal with. Their social structure, coupled with deadly bites, helped make them one of the most successful carnivores around, and in many cases, the most common one, sometimes outnumbering others by thousands, as seen in the Labrea tar pits, where the dire wolves had 2,000 more individuals recovered than any other animal.

Such stats are pretty impressive, and bad news for the humans that lived alongside them, as they would have had to compete for resources, no easy feat. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, no direct evidence of confrontations between the two are known, but this might one day change. Yet direwolves weren't the only carnivore that humans had to contend with, as at the time canines weren't the only threats stalking the lands, as pretty intimidating felines were plentiful too,

with the scariest, likely being the Smilodon. This killer cat was no joke, and it's no doubt one of the scariest felids that we know of, thanks to its striking appearance and giant teeth. And it wasn't only terrifying based off of looks, because Smilodon was also one of the largest predators of its time, easily outclassing dire wolves and being one of the largest cats to ever live, period. With estimates giving the largest species, Smilodon Populator,

a weight similar to that of smaller adult Codiac bears. Meanwhile, the other two Smilodon species, while lighter, were by no means tiny, with the Smilodon Fatalus being as big as the largest known lions, while Smilodon Grassilus was jaguar-sized. Thankfully for humans, only one species, the Fatalus, is known to have coexisted with them in America, since Populator was restricted to South America while the Grasolus had died out 500,000 years previously. Despite not being the biggest of its kind, Fatalus still definitely held an edge over most in the size department. And even then,

its stature wasn't really its main asset, with its true, not-so-secret weapon being its massive saber teeth. These crazy-looking teeth were in reality elongated canines that could grow up to 11 inches or 28 centimeters in length, making them longer than the teeth of a T-Rex. With such formidable weapons, Smilodon was not after small critters, but rather megafaunal herbivores like giant bison, camels, glyphtotherium, mastodons, young mammoths, and horses. It's currently thought the Smilodon would dispatch such large prey by sinking or thrusting its canines into the victim's throat delivering death very quickly. Because this method targeted a soft body part, and its teeth were so long and sharp, the Smilodon really didn't need a powerful bite, leading to a relatively

weak chop that was comparable to that of a jaguars, which is much smaller than the Fatalis. Nevertheless, its bite worked wonders, and it wasn't even the only tool that Smilodon used, as like modern-day cats, it had razor-sharp retractable claws that had further deployed in order to grip tightly onto prey during hunts. Furthermore, examinations of its heel bone suggest that it was an exceptional jumper, who could reach 12 feet or 3.7 meters in height, allowing it to easily leap on a prey that could be many times its size. Outside of physical attributes, the Smilodon was still designed to be a hunting machine, with scans of the skull indicating a similar brain structure to that of modern felines,

showing that it had a heightened sense of sight, hearing, and coordination over its limbs, resulting in it being one menacing package that could have in fact been multiplied. A certain fossil sites contain numerous smilodon within close proximity, leading to the idea that it may have been a social creature that hunted and cooperated in prides. Paleontologists also think that it caused nothing but problems for Native Americans, playing the role of a competitor like the Dyerwolf, since it went after a lot of the same animals that Native Americans did. And this competition was spread far and wide,

considering the fact that Smilodons have been found nearly every part of America. And the competition also probably got lethal at times as well, considering that both occupied a similar niche and lived in the same areas. Some people may have even been targeted for food too, as Smilodon's size and weapons made it easily capable of taking down unsuspecting or unarmed humans. This is backed by findings of other felines, including earlier saber-toothed cats, which were known to have definitely preyed upon hominens. Even today, about 500 people are killed every year by big cats, despite modern technology

and low populations. So it's not a stretch to assume that at least a few humans got saber-toothed, making Smilodon one of the last animals you'd want to run into. However, for Native Americans, Smilodon was still not the biggest threat around, and I mean that literally. For the largest predator that they shared the lands with was a bear, the arctodus, better known as the giant short-faced bear. This behemoth was a member of the Tramarktonae, a group of Ercids whose only living species

is the spectacled bear. Thus far, only two species are known of, Pristinus and Simis, with Simis being the only one who lived alongside Native Americans, persisting in the U.S. until 12,800 years ago. Along with being the lone survivor, Simus was by far the biggest of the two, and was also one of the largest known terrestrial carnivorine mammals of all time, possibly reaching 957 kilograms or 2,110 pounds, which exceeds the weight of certain medium-sized theropods like the Teratophonius, a literal Tyrannosaur. Along with heftiness, Arctetus had an impressive frame as well. standing at human eye level while on all fours, and reaching 3.4 meters or 11 feet when standing on two legs.

Quite the sight, literally. Naturally, like others in its environment, Arctodus was well equipped, sporting an extremely robust skeleton, powerful limbs, and paws fitted with large claws. Its mouth, too, was fairly daunting, being supported by a broad and powerful skull, while being lined with thickened incisors and canines. This all paints a rather scary picture. But the arctodists may not have had as much bloodlust as one would think, because research suggests that it may have been an opportunistic omnivore, that's diet depended on where it lived. For example, specimens in the Libreotar Tarpit of California

had mostly herbivorous diets, while those located far north had a more carnivorous diet, showing that this bear wasn't all about killing prey, rather just about getting calories in the easiest way possible. Paleontologists also think its diet was influenced by how many predators it lived alongside, since because it was so big and sluggish, it had a hard time competing with more agile rivals, leading to diet switches in order to decrease competition. This does not mean that it was a pushover, though, as numerous large megafauna, like mammoths

and mastodons, show signs of arctodice bites, despite being found in areas associated with humans and other predators. On top of this, paleontologists speculate that arctodists would have actually utilized its size to occasionally scare predators, including humans, away from kills that they had made, forcing them to make a decision to abandon their would-be dinner or take on the beast itself, which probably would have been an easy choice. Although other animals around were possibly even more risky to confront, as some were basically titans, in other words, mammoths and mastodons. Specifically, Native Americans would have seen the likes of Colombian mammoths, woolly mammoths,

pygmy mammoths, and the American mastodon. All of them were gigantic in size, except for the pygmy mammoth, who suffered from island dwarfism thanks to being stranded on the Channel Islands. But besides it, these trunk behemoths were absolute units that rivaled present-day elephants. The biggest one, the Colombian mammoth, was actually larger than African bush elephants, having a shoulder height of 3.75 meters or 12.3 feet, while weighing 12.5 tons. The more famous woolly mammoth wasn't as hefty, but was still a tank, being around 8 tons and pretty similar in height to modern-day elephants. Meanwhile, American mastodons were the shortest of the three, being about 7 feet or 2.1

meters tall, but it was still seriously hefty due to its stocky build, resulting in it possibly weighing 80% more than elephants of the same height, with adults sometimes coming in at 11 tons. And to go along with their immense sizes, these three species had very thick skin. And in the case of the mastodon and woolly mammoth, Dens fur coats on top of that, which helped protect not against just the cold, but attacks too. And of course, like nearly every proboscidian, the trunk giants had their iconic tusks as well, which acted almost like Swiss pocket knives,

being able to be used for lifting, digging, defense, and gathering food. Such a tool made these guys very resourceful, and this is reflected by their success throughout the Pleistocene, being located in virtually every habitat, with Macedon's preferring coniferous forests, the woolly mammoths sticking to open steps, and the Colombian mammoth living in grasslands or Aspen Parklands. With such a range, interactions with Native Americans was inevitable, and evidence actually suggests that despite their near mystical sizes,

they, like many others, fell to the prowess of human hunters. In fact, humans basically started hunting these giants from the get-go once they reached America, with certain specimens dating to over 20,000 years bearing marks, that match injuries made by man-made weapons. Although, for the most part, it seems that in the beginning, humans were not entirely great at hunting such large game. And certain simulations have concluded that most hunts would have ended quite badly, as primitive spears mostly shattered against the thick skin of mastodons and mammoths instead of penetrating.

However, things began to heat up roughly 13,000 years ago with the beginning of the Clovis culture. This was an archaeological culture defined by Clovis points, which were projectile points with lancelated fluted shapes. It is thought that the Clovis people were hunter-gatherers and masters of hunting megafauna, possibly being the first humans to ever extensively hunt mammoths, and to a lesser extent, hunt Macedons. And throughout the U.S., multiple kill sites have been found with the remains of both juvenile and adult proboscideans.

It is believed that the hunters would have targeted the torsos of these behemoths, which were not protected by their ribs, and would then proceed to track the animal after an initial attack. until it bled out. One known female mammoth from the NACO mammoth kill site showed that these hunts could get really grisly. With the containing eight-birded projectiles that were located in its skull, shoulder blade, ribs, and stomach.

After a successful hunt, these megafauna would not only play an important role in quenching hunger, but culture and technology too, as people would routinely butcher and process carcasses in order to produce fuel and a variety of tools, including lithic flakes, cores, flake knives, cleaver choppers, spear points, and bone wrenches. And they also created art with the bones themselves, making engravings which were then carried around as a portable form of art. And if even the Titans were taken down, you can bet that the smaller cousin, the Pygmy

mammoth didn't escape this unfortunate relationship with humans either, as people entered their islands about 13,000 years ago, which also coincides with the extinction of pygmy mammoths. Kio figure. Another animal that also had a rather one-sided relationship with early Native Americans was the camelops. This name may sound underwhelming and it definitely didn't impress by being the biggest around, but it was still highly unique in that it was a camel living in America, something that would be quite an odd sight today.

Studies show that camelops truly was a full-fledged camel, though was possibly distinct in appearance, as no one knows if it had two humps, one hump, or no humps, since their bodies typically did not fossilize well. Though we do know that it was taller than living camels, being about 20% taller at the shoulders due to extensively elongated legs. Like its living relatives, it's believed that camelops was a grazer, who fed on coarse shrubs and could be found mainly in western United States,

plus Tennessee, to the east. Trackways show that it would routinely travel long distances on its quest for food, sometimes taking them into the path of Native Americans who were known to have hunted them. Nevertheless, in defiance of its smaller size and lack of armor or weapons, camelops seems to have been hunted far less often than other megafauna, with the majority of specimens being scot-free of damage. Furthermore, sites that have large amounts of camelops remains lack stone tools, assigned to some paleontologists that they were in a staple for humans.

And a possibly even more unique creature than Native Americans would have seen but seemed to have left alone too was a beaver, the casteroides. Its size has led to the moniker the giant beaver, and this is fitting considering that the average adult was 1.9 meters or 6.2 feet long, while some could get up to 2.2 meters or 7.2 feet. They were so big, in fact, that they would have been too heavy to pick up, being three times the weight of an adult German shepherd, making their sight quite the fever dream, which was only exacerbated by the presence of large teeth. Their incisors in particular were elongated, and were half a ruler in size, top to bottom.

And unlike modern beavers, casteroides had a textured surface on its teeth, as opposed to being smooth, yet why they were textured isn't clear. Another difference between it and its living relatives was found in the fossa, which were deep and broad, especially on its lower jaw,

suggesting an extremely powerful bite that may have aided it in woodcutting and gouging. Of course, it perhaps uses its bite as a defensive tool too, since modern beavers are known not to be afraid to try out their bite on what they perceive as threats. And similar to living beavers once again, Casteroides was a graceful swimmer in spite of its size, having multiple adaptations for treading water, including a longer tail and larger hind feet, which were webbed.

Studies on its diet even show that it was likely more aquatic than other beavers, having a diet made up of submerged aquatic plants as opposed to the woody diets of extant ones. Its aptitude for a watery lifestyle may have played a role in its decreased in turetionation. with humans, as very little evidence of direct mingling are known of, with the only signs of interaction coming from one fossil site that possessed both human artifacts and giant beaver bones. However, some indirect evidence is seen outside of America, where, for example, in Canada, a couple of the First Nations have giant beavers present in their mythology, leading some to believe that these giant mythical creatures were inspired by the prehistoric giant. Sadly, we can no longer

witness Casteroides as they died out approximately 11,000. years ago, joining the rest of the animals on this list. And this list is by no means extensive, as America has lost a good amount of its fauna, especially megafauna, which today is just 30% of what it once was. Some paleontologists believe that humans played a large role in this die-off, since clearly they had a knack for out competing and hunting other animals, though others believe that climate was more to blame. Whatever the case, it's just disappointing that we cannot see the many wondrous creatures a used to roam them. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes.

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