The biggest bear that has ever lived,
Weighing in at over a ton,
Enjoying the sunshine, he might look lovable,,,
Don't be fooled,
He is a powerful predator,
Giant short-faced bears are newcomers to this South American forest,
traveling here from North America,
Whether they will thrive here will come down to one thing,,,
food,
Because he needs 50 pounds of meat a day,
Wild dogs feasting on a huge kill,
Could be a free lunch,
Two powerful forces,
Neither knows what the other is capable of,,,
yet,
Fourteen feet tall, and his paws pack a serious punch,
He's made his point,
Maybe there'll be some scraps left behind,
But the bear is not going anywhere,
He's found his new home,
This is the Ice Age,
As powerful forces connect continents,
animals are on the move,
exploring the world and finding new places to live,
This is a time when the animal kingdom is in turmoil,
When birds are bigger than elephants,
Rivals from different continents meet each other for the first time,
And monstrous creatures invade new lands,
In this rapidly changing world,
even the smallest creatures are crossing continents,
This Ice Age squirrel is exploring a new strip of land,
A bridge that now connects North and South America,
Everywhere he looks, there's something new,,,
and strange,
What on earth are those?
They're each as big as a basketball,
Just one of them would feed him for a week,
But unfortunately, they're armor-plated,
A giant ground sloth,
Twenty feet long and weighing six tons,
These are cannonball fruit,
And easy to crack if you're the size of an elephant,
Now is his chance,
Maybe not,
But there are plenty more where that came from,
Foot-long claws are perfect for harvesting,,,
in bulk,
Effective,,,
but hazardous at ground level,
A giant sloth eats 300 pounds of food a day,
But this one seems to have had his fill of cannonballs,
After all that,,,
it tastes awful,
Maybe the sloth's next meal will be sweeter,
Not every strategy works first time,
To thrive in new lands, it's best to keep trying,
It's a lesson everyone needs to learn,
Including this young Ice Age armadillo,
Just a few weeks old and already three feet long,
Life in new lands can be unpredictable,
and rains here are late,
His survival depends entirely on his mother,
But she's sleeping on the job,
Their ancestors came from the forests of South America,
but ventured here, the scrublands of North America,
during the Ice Age,
It's a tough place to live,
but his mother has a plan,
And nothing will stand in her way,
Almost nothing,
Right now, the baby is doing fine, feeding on his mother's milk,
But if they don't find water soon, she will run out,
As they travel, the terrain seems to be getting worse,
Not just steeper,
but hotter and drier,
Luckily, his mother has a good nose for finding water,
That's more like it,
But someone has got there first,
She might be a giant armadillo,
but he's a Columbian mammoth,
Fourteen feet tall,
Highly intelligent,
And very bad-tempered,
Each of these mammoths needs to drink 50 gallons a day,
That can take some time,
But there's one thing that might make them move on,
Mammoths are very scared of crocodiles,
Not a crocodile,
But the mammoths aren't sure,
Their eyesight is not good,
and they're not taking any chances,
For his mother, a drink at last,
That means milk for the baby,,,
and a chance for him to settle into his new home,
As the Ice Age changes the face of the planet,
sea levels rise and fall,
And some creatures end up marooned,
To survive on an island with limited food,,,
animals adapt in surprising ways,
Like getting smaller,
Much smaller,
A dwarf Stegodon,
Closely related to elephants,
but just three feet tall,
If you think she's small,
this is her baby,
Not even 12 inches tall,
But for something so tiny, she has a big appetite,
And an attitude to match,
A swishing trunk and tail means a Stegodon wants to play,
There we go,
Dwarf Stegodon create trails as they move through the jungle,
but it takes years for youngsters to learn the map,
It's too easy to take a wrong turn,,,
and find yourself lost,
Bad timing,
A six-foot meat eater,
A giant stork,
Island creatures may be small,
but not these flying visitors,
A baby Stegodon,,,
would make a perfect meal,
These tangled roots just might save her,
But the odds are about to get a lot worse,
Her mother to the rescue,
Safe, and a lesson learned,
In a world where birds can eat elephants,,,
you should never stray too far from Mother,
With limited food on the island,
being small works well for dwarf Stegodon,
But here in South America,
the Ice Age has made giants,
Smilodon, a saber-toothed cat,
His ancestors traveled here from North America,
and in this new land, he's the king,
The local competition,
A terror bird,
Maybe not that terrifying,
but intelligent, resourceful, flightless hunters,
Their ancestors have lived here for 50 million years,
His brother,
They hunt together,
but when food is scarce, it's every terror bird for himself,
But maybe the sabertooth can help,
Why do the hard work when someone else can do it for you?
All he has to do is follow,
Not too close,
His brother has the same idea,
Smilodon have huge, muscular forelimbs
and paws bigger than any living cat,
Perfect for bringing down prey this size,
If he's smart,,,
he'll let his brother take the heat,
Chaos!
But it's working,,,
for both of them,
The king has been outsmarted by a couple of birds,
But as the turmoil of the Ice Age continues,
animals everywhere will have to fight
to keep their place in this strange new world,
As the far north freezes,
in the south, drought rules and deserts expand,
The extreme conditions forge
some of the strangest creatures the world has ever seen,
To survive,
they must battle the driest climate for millions of years,
When people began studying Ice Age animals,
they noticed something strange
about the way their fossils were scattered across the world,
One of the real surprising discoveries was
that animal fossils associated with certain continents
were found in other places,
Clearly, the animals had moved from one continent to another,
It seemed as if animals were crossing vast oceans,
How did they get there?
It's hard to imagine that animals could cross oceans
to settle in new continents,
but something surprising was happening during the Ice Age
which could explain it,
During colder periods of the Ice Age,
water becomes ice and gets bound up in ice sheets at the poles,
Slowly but surely as those ice caps build up,
it means there's less water in the ocean
and that means that the sea level starts dropping,
And as you lower sea level,
the seabed is exposed,
Seabed becomes land,
And that means that previously disconnected land masses
suddenly are joined together,
Across the planet,
continents were joining together in different ways,
North America and Asia today are physically separate continents,
but back in the Ice Age, sea level was a hundred plus meters lower,
and those two land masses actually became connected via a land bridge,
As these land bridges emerged out of the sea,
it was like opening a door,
All these animals could suddenly move from one continent
into an entirely new continent,
But there was a complication,
The land bridges were not permanent,
As the ice kind of started to melt away,
they'd disappear under the waves again,
And animals, therefore,
had almost a brief window in Earth history,
in which to move between those land masses,,,
before finding themselves isolated once again,
Elsewhere, a different kind of land bridge was forming
in a much more explosive way,
The planet is very dynamic,
It feels stable today, but actually, all the continental plates are moving,
When the continents move, we generate lots of volcanoes,
And this is really important to the North and South American continents,
which were physically separate millions of years ago,
Moving tectonic plates caused volcanoes to erupt,
bridging the gap with a new strip of land,
which is now Central America,
It effectively formed an animal superhighway,
Different kinds of land bridge enabled animals to move continent,
and the impact was extraordinary,
Animals living in the Northern Hemisphere were able then to move southwards,
finding resources they desperately needed,
but coming into conflict with all of the animals in South America,
New kinds of predator arrived and found new prey to hunt,
Creatures like Macrauchenia became easy victims,
As you had these animal groups moving into entirely new areas,
then you would've had entirely new kinds of interactions,
Hunters had such an abundance of food
they gradually grew into the largest of their kind,
While some animals came down from North America,
others were heading up from the south,
Traffic flowed in both directions
in a movement known as the Great American Interchange,
Today, some of our most iconic animals are descendants
of species that made journeys to new lands,
Pumas, jaguars,
and other mammals like porcupines and armadillos
all result from this great migration,
Animals settled across the planet in new ways
all thanks to the Ice Age,