From about 12,000 years ago to 2 million years ago there were giant 500 pound panthers in North America.
A species known as Panthera atrox lived from coast to coast. For almost 80 years scientists considered this cat to be a lion, but a more recent analysis has determined that it was a unique species, now extinct.
It competed with saber-tooths, dire wolves, and giant short-faced bears for meat from bison, horses, camels, llamas, and peccaries. The latter carnivore, however, was probably just a scavenger, but was intimidating enough to fight with the others over kills.
In forested areas large jaguars were another common carnivore and they lived all over North America too. Plus, there was a second kind of fanged cat, the scimitar cat, which is little known because so few fossils of its kind were found at Rancho La Brea in California. This cat ranged into Europe and Africa, but wasn't as common here due to competition from the other large carnivores.
True lions did live in Alaska, but never penetrated the Cordilleran glacier that cut North American wildlife off from that of the Old World.
Compared to just 12,000 years ago, or even just 150 years ago, there just ain't no wildlife left in this world.
***************************************************
http://markgelbart.wordpress.com/
A species known as Panthera atrox lived from coast to coast. For almost 80 years scientists considered this cat to be a lion, but a more recent analysis has determined that it was a unique species, now extinct.
It competed with saber-tooths, dire wolves, and giant short-faced bears for meat from bison, horses, camels, llamas, and peccaries. The latter carnivore, however, was probably just a scavenger, but was intimidating enough to fight with the others over kills.
In forested areas large jaguars were another common carnivore and they lived all over North America too. Plus, there was a second kind of fanged cat, the scimitar cat, which is little known because so few fossils of its kind were found at Rancho La Brea in California. This cat ranged into Europe and Africa, but wasn't as common here due to competition from the other large carnivores.
True lions did live in Alaska, but never penetrated the Cordilleran glacier that cut North American wildlife off from that of the Old World.
Compared to just 12,000 years ago, or even just 150 years ago, there just ain't no wildlife left in this world.
***************************************************
http://markgelbart.wordpress.com/
