Sabre-toothed tiger
3 million years ago, the climate was cold, the North American continent was in the glacial period, herbivores were gnawing on grass roots and bark, due to lack of food, the competition among herbivores was also extremely fierce, two American bison with a heavy meal The last piece of grass here is being snatched, but in the withered grass, a hunter who has been in ambush for a long time is ready. Between the lightning and flint, a bison instantly fell, and its competitors fled, and the predators used it to grow. The 20-centimeter canine teeth pierced the throat of the prey. This 300-kilogram beast was the saber-toothed tiger. It was one of the largest predators in North America at that time. The saber-toothed tiger had muscular forelimbs and great power. , and then pierce the opponent's throat with 20 cm long canine teeth. The saber-toothed tiger weighs 200-400 kilograms and is about 2.7 meters long. The saber-toothed tiger is most famous for its fangs, which seem to carry two natural scimitars. , very majestic, but such long teeth can sometimes be counterproductive. The long teeth make it difficult for them to eat the meat between the bones, and even crushing the bone marrow is very laborious, and the broken teeth in the fight lead to infection and inflammation. The dead saber-toothed tiger Not in the minority either.
North American bison
Saber-toothed tiger
The saber-toothed tiger with its slanted swords maximizes the attack power and bite force of beasts. Preying on large herbivores is the saber-toothed tiger's strength, but with the extinction of various large herbivores in the Pleistocene, it is not good at fast speed. It was difficult for the running saber-toothed tiger to compete with more flexible carnivores, and then saber-toothed tigers continued to differentiate into various subfamilies scattered in the corners of history.
There is a famous Hancock Fossil Park in Los Angeles, USA. This park was originally an asphalt lake. More than 2,000 skeletons of saber-toothed tigers were excavated in it. They came here to prey and fell into the asphalt lake. This proves from a certain angle The food of saber-toothed tigers was quite scarce at that time, and carrion became the last straw that crushed this group. Later, in order to adapt to the environment, some subspecies differentiated into various types of saber-toothed tigers, and roamed in Africa, Asia, Compared with the saber-toothed tiger struggling on the poverty line, the primitive lion seems to have a much better life between North and South America.
Asphalt Lake
Cave lions
About 500,000 years ago, primitive lions spread from the savannah of East Africa. Because they can adapt well to the environment, some members left Africa and began to evolve independently, leaving behind the ancestors of the current African lions , Some primitive lions came to Eurasia, and the primitive lions that entered Europe adapted to the cold climate and evolved into cave lions, also known as cave lions. The size of cave lions is much larger than that of African lions. Adult male cave lions weigh 250- Between 300 kilograms and 2.1 meters in length, the cave lion is a solitary animal. At its peak, the footprints of this group spread to the westernmost part of Europe, and two-thirds of Eurasia used to be their range.
Original lion
The cave lion
According to the petroglyphs left by European ancestors in the Stone Age, it can be inferred that there are faint markings on the fur of the cave lion, and the male lion also has a ring-shaped mane on the neck.
Puma
Some of the more tenacious cave lions crossed the Bering Land Bridge to the North American continent. They quickly adapted to the environment here. Due to the abundance of food, they evolved into larger Puma lions, lion lion weights 350-470 kilograms, 4 meters in length, after the lions come to this feng shui treasure land, they cannot avoid conflicts with the local indigenous people, but with the advantage of their size, they can often gain the upper hand in the battle with saber-toothed tigers and dire wolves, and more importantly Yes, like modern African lions, lions are group animals, and the group can improve their chances of survival.
Some individual lions are also willing to be alone. Slowly, lions gradually became one of the most successful carnivores in the area. In the asphalt lake, a large number of saber-toothed tigers and dire wolves were found. But there are very few, which shows that the arrival of lions has greatly squeezed the living space of local carnivores, and the lions in the asphalt lake may be those who live alone.
Short-faced bear
But even so, these mighty beasts are afraid of an animal in North America. They weigh 1.5 tons and stand 4 meters high. It is the short-faced bear, which lived in the same period as the lion. On the mainland, because their main food is bison and three-toed horses, they are also called bull bears.
Short-faced bear
Short-faced bear
It can kill 4 tons of giant ground sloths alone. The short-faced bear has a wide forehead but a short face. Lazy and other giants, at the same time, when facing competitors, the short-faced bear can also show a huge advantage. Even if you add the lion, the saber-toothed tiger, and the dire wolf together, it is not its opponent, so the lion is only It can take a back seat and become the second largest carnivore in North America, but possibly the largest cat that has ever appeared on Earth.But the good times didn't last long. After thousands of years, the earth entered the ice age. These animals that were used to living in North America had to move south to the south, where the temperature was more suitable. These carnivores were full of confidence and believed that they were the most ferocious at that time. The largest beast.
Giant bear
But they are wrong, South America is dangerous, there is one of the largest and most powerful animals on land at the time waiting for them and ready to meet their challenge, it weighs 1.8 tons and stands It is 5 meters high and can easily overturn a car with a slap.
The giant dentate bear from South America
The largest carnivore on land at that time, it was also the largest bear that ever existed on earth, and the largest mammalian carnivore in history. The giant dentate bear lives in South America and is a direct line of the spectacled bear Cousin, the reason for its huge size is that South America was rich in species at that time and it had no natural enemies, but as North American animals moved south, the living space was gradually squeezed, but even so, lions, saber-toothed tigers and other beasts still had to detour when they saw it. , Giant dentate bears also often snatch their food. Giant dentate bears can take advantage of their size to prey on their prey, but these migrating carnivores from North America quickly replaced the original ecological chain of South American predators . Baghounds and terrifying birds are slowly declining, and there are so many uninvited guests when there is not much food, which also makes the slender-toothed giant bear a crisis of survival.
After the bag dog
, the size of the mighty South American giant bear gradually shrunk, and at the same time, the eating habit of the giant gnat bear gradually changed from carnivorous to omnivorous. The historical law is that no matter how powerful the beast is, it has to surrender to the natural environment.This is the era of the survival of the strong. Body size and strength determine everything. Countless species make their bodies bigger and bigger in order to survive, but there are exceptions. In a certain corner of the earth, an inconspicuous species is Suddenly rising, their length has been around 1.7 meters, but they did not develop in size, but transformed into making their brains more and more developed, this species that has been attacked by beasts for a long time has rewritten the evolutionary history of the earth, and they have learned to communicate , learned to use fire and tools, they united and cooperated to fight against the harsh natural environment of the earth, snatch the last survival resources from these beasts, and finally survived, two million years later, their descendants stand in the museum, Learn about what happened to the earth in the past and present, and an icy skeleton seems to be accusing the cold planet 2 million years ago.
