In terrestrial zoology, ice age megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and New Latin fauna "animal life") are large or giant animals that lived during the Cenozoic or Ice Age (65 MYA-10,000 years ago). The most common thresholds used are weight over 40 kilograms (90 lb) or 44 kilograms (100 lb) (i.e., comparable or larger in mass than a human) or over a tonne, 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lb) (i.e., comparable or larger in mass than an ox). The first of these include many species not popularly thought of as overly large, such as white-tailed deer and red kangaroo.
The megafauna[]
Aepycamelus[]
Aepycamelus was a prairie dweller of North America (Colorado, etc.). It was a highly specialized animal. Its head was relatively small compared with the rest of its body, its neck was long, as a result of giraffe-like lengthening of the cervical vertebrae, and its legs were long and stilt-like, with the elbow and knee joints on the same level. The top of its head would have been about 3 m (9.8 ft) above the ground. Its strange body structure gives information on its mode of life and habits. Aepycamelus obviously inhabited dry grasslands with groups of trees. It is presumed to have moved about singly or in small groups, like today's giraffes, and like them, browsed high up in the trees. In this respect, it had no competitors. It survived a relatively long time, through most of the Miocene epoch, and died out prior to the start of the Pliocene, possibly due to climatic changes.
Amebelodon[]