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Megapredators of Ice Age North America

North America once had one of the most diverse arrays of large predators on the planet, including both living species and species that have gone extinct. For each picture label the animal shown.
Ice Age Alaska was separated from the rest of the continent by an ice sheet, and shared wildlife with Eurasia. Animals marked with an asterisk were only found in Alaska until the ice sheets melted
Quiz by Kearsarge
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Last updated: January 25, 2024
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First submittedApril 27, 2022
Times taken345
Average score78.9%
Rating4.50
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Kearsarge
+1
Level 68
Apr 27, 2022
I could find very little on Miracinonyx inexpectatus, the second species of American Cheetah. I am far from certain that it existed in the end-Pleistocene like the others did. Included it anyways as I was able to find a picture and might as well.

This list is possibly missing at least one species of Arctotherium, a genus of South American short faced bears. As I could not find any good public pictures of those species, and their range in North America was pretty unclear, I decided not to include them. I did include tigers, even though their range in North America was limited to Alaska, and if they actually even lived there is really unclear. The difference, of course is that I can easily find pictures of tigers, while Wikimedia Commons pictures of Arctotherium are scarce.

Goes without saying from the presense of crocodile and alligator species that Central America was pretty warm, even during the Ice Ages, and could support crocodillians.

Kearsarge
+1
Level 68
Dec 30, 2022
Removed M. inexpectus as I found some info that suggests that it was just an early pleistocene version of the American Cheetah, and did not survive to the end pleistocene. On a further look, I have been able to identify the Arctotherium species native to North America as Arctotherium Wingei, a small short faced bear about the size of an American Black Bear, and native to Central America. I have been unable to find any public use reconstructions of it, more or less every drawing of Arctotherium species out there is for A. Augustidens, which was about twice as big as A. Wingei, and native to South America. If I ever find any free license paleoart of A. Wingei, I will add it here, as it is to my knowledge the only large North American predator missing from this list.

I arbitrarily decided that "megapredator", is a predator over 100 pounds. Considered adding coyotes and the rare Pleistocene dhole, but I figured that adding them would necessitate adding lots of random midsized predators

Kearsarge
+1
Level 68
Jan 25, 2024
Added a 1913 face restoration of Arctotherium bonariense. This is about the best I can do for its sister species Arctotherium Wingei, a small, obscure black bear sized species of short-faced bear native to Central America and northern South America. Other than this one drawing, copyright free images of Arctotherium species seem next to nonexistent, given their obscurity. If I ever find public use full body restoration of A. wingei, I will use it instead.

Removed Siberian tigers as the proposed Siberian tiger remains are now suggested to be from cave lions, and it is now theorized that tigers as a whole colonized Siberia after the last ice age, making it even less likely they crossed over into Alaska.

Etanna
+2
Level 70
Jan 20, 2023
I like this quiz idea a lot! I definitely learned something from it and it was interesting seeing the pictures of the animals.
SpiritOfFire
+1
Level 71
Jan 20, 2023
Interesting quiz.

Though I feel that sabretooth should be accepted.

vermiciousknid
+1
Level 88
Jan 20, 2023
Fun quiz. Good idea and execution. Well done!
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