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> Mammoths and dire wolves

Mammoths and dire wolves

author: Walter B. Myers/Novapix

reference: t-din05-00501

Image Size 300 DPI: 33 * 25 cm

A pack of dire wolves (Canis Dirus) crosses paths with two mammoths 150 thousand years ago during the Upper (Tarantian) Pleistocene Epoch in North America. A late fall dusting of snow heralds the coming winter. This was a period of glaciation known in North America as the Illinoian Stage when the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of the continent to a depth of 2 miles. The extinct Dire Wolf was closely related to the modern Gray Wolf, though is not the direct ancestor of known wolf today. The Dire Wolf was larger and stockier than the Gray Wolf with proportionally shorter legs. Mammoths were close relatives of modern elephants and approximately the same size, though Asian mammoths were somewhat larger than their American cousins. Mammoths had massive tusks, one uncovered in North America was 11 feet long. Both mammoths and dire wolves disappeared from the North American continent about ten thousand years ago.

Keywords for this photo:

2010 - ANIMAL - CANIDAE - CANIS DIRUS - CENOZOIC - EARTH - FAUNA - HISTORY OF EARTH - ICE AGE - ILLUSTRATION - MAMMAL - MAMMOTH - PLEISTOCENE - SYNAPSID -