Spring,,,
in the flower meadows of Siberia,
And this is a strange type of rhino,,,
the size of an elephant,
She needs to eat 300 pounds of lush food a day,
Luckily, there's lots of it about,
She's one of a new breed of creatures
born to make the most of a rapidly changing world,
This is the Ice Age,
Growing ice caps draw water from the atmosphere,
drying out the climate
and creating a remarkable new habitat,
Grasslands,
They're expanding across the planet,
Fed by this abundant source of food,
weird and wonderful creatures fight for survival,
And as far as the eye can see,
a vast new army of Ice Age giants,
This hungry Goliath has been waiting to feast all winter,
Unfortunately, so have these bloodsucking parasites,
Ticks stay dormant during the freezing Ice Age winter,
but now they're awake,
Birds eat ticks,
So maybe this raven can get rid of these nasty pests,
No luck,
It's just stealing fur,
A cozy lining for its nest,
First a plague of ticks,
Now a plague of ravens,
Something needs to be done,
And in these Ice Age meadows,
there's one thing that could deal with both,
Hot,
steaming,,,
mud,
Thermal mud pools are common here,
And she is going to make the most of them,
But there's a problem,
Males are territorial,
and that makes them dangerous,
Deep rasps and rumbles tell them who's who,
This sounds like a friendly female,
Maybe even a relative,
Spa time,
Places like this are also ideal for swapping information,,,
about territory,,,
rivals,
and the best places to feed,
As a bonus, the hot mud repels the ticks,
And who wants to steal muddy fur?
For grazers like her,
the expansion of the grasslands is good news,
But here, on the Great Plains of Africa,
the changing landscape is causing turmoil,
Scimitar-toothed cats are used to being the top predators here,
But not for much longer,
The hunt has taken these brothers into unfamiliar territory,
They sense danger,
A pack of enormous otters,
Ten feet long,
Working together, they're too powerful even for the cats,
Here, expanding grasslands have upset the balance of life,
Otters have left rivers behind
to make the most of these new grasslands,
They are now the kings of the African plains,
For some creatures, the changing landscape is devastating,
The largest ape that's ever lived,
Gigantopithecus,
Double the weight of a silverback gorilla,
For two million years,
these gentle, intelligent giants have been masters of this forest,
But now their home is disappearing,
Trees are dying,
And forests like this,,,
are giving way to the new grasslands,
As his home shrinks, certain types of tree are vulnerable,
Fruit is an important part of his diet,
and that's now in short supply,
But he can still use his deep knowledge of the habitat to scrape by,
Tree bark provides essential fiber, vitamins, and minerals,
And he gets some protein from the forest floor,
Ants,
And if they bite back,,,
he has a neat solution,
A fishing technique
called ant-dipping,
But his world is becoming a lonely place,
He's not just hunting for food,
He's looking for a mate,
Just gibbons,
It's time to get smart,
They might be useful,
A myrtle tree,
Just what he wants,
But how to reach the prize?
He has the strength of ten men,
But even that is not enough,
He tries a more thoughtful approach,
But he's still missing one thing,,,
someone to share it with,
His calls can reach over a mile away,
But most of his kin have disappeared,
unable to adapt to this new age,
There's no answer,
Gigantopithecus isn't the only one struggling to breed,
An armadillo the size of a car,,,
and built like a tank,
Even top predators give him a wide berth,
But that doesn't help when he's looking for a mate,
It should be easy to spot another giant in this open landscape,
But these armadillos have very poor eyesight,
Anything more than a few feet away is blurred,
But they have a powerful sense of smell,
One sniff tells him everything he needs to know,
And it could be good news,
Getting warmer,
A female,
But she's not alone,
Another male,
A rival,
Older and half a ton heavier,
But for him, she's worth it,
These males will risk their lives to win a female,
The old male has more power,
But good technique is important too,
Strong hind legs are key to a successful swing,
At last, the youngster lands a blow,
But has he done enough to impress?
Time to find out,
Victory in battle is no guarantee of romance,
Nothing in love or life is certain,,,
and that includes Ice Age weather,
The rains here are late,
And these woolly mammoths are in trouble,
This mother is so dehydrated, she's run out of milk,
They need to find water,
But instead of heading off,
the herd's leader stands still and listens,
Not with her tiny ears,
but with her feet,
They have large soft pads that are extremely sensitive,
They can detect the faintest vibrations from many miles away,
The sound of distant rain,
They've got a lot of ground to cover,
The calf must keep up,
These mammoths can draw energy
from the fatty humps on their backs,,,
except the calf, who's too young to survive without milk,
A storm,
But not what the herd was expecting,
Ice Age glaciers grind rock into dust,
fueling the biggest dust storms for 200 million years,
The adult mammoths know
how to use their trunks to cover their nostrils,
But for the calf, this is a suffocating disaster,
Life here is brutal,
A third of mammoth calves die before they reach a year old,
The herd must move on without them,
At last,
The drought is over,
There will be milk for the baby,
And soon, fresh grass for the adults,
Every mammoth in this vast region has heard the call
of water,
And they come together in a spectacular celebration,
These vast grasslands, borne of the Ice Age,
support the biggest herds the world has ever seen,,,
reshaping nearly a third of the land of planet Earth,
A legacy that still exists today,
The Ice Age is coming to an end,
As the planet warms up, every habitat on Earth is changing,
As the ice retreats,
forests grow back
and extraordinary creatures battle to survive in a new world,
The Ice Age was a time of giants,
Today, Africa has a lot of big mammals, and you might think that they're giant,
but actually, during the Ice Age, the animals were so much bigger,
Imagine if they walked among us today,
The animals were unlike anything we see on Earth now,
The sheer size of Ice Age animals can be difficult to grasp,
Ice Age moas were the tallest bird of all time,
standing nearly twice the height of the average human
and around 300 times heavier than your average duck,
Moas grew really big in the Ice Age because
there were no other herbivores competing where they lived,
They had very few predators,
so they didn't need to fly away from them,
If a moa were to show up at the park,
I think you would need a fair amount of bird feed,
When it comes to Ice Age mammals,,,
Elasmotherium was one of the biggest,
If it could spend most of the day at that flower shop,
I'm sure it would get through pretty much everything on display there,
Weighing in at a massive five tons,
it had a digestive system almost the size of a small car,
Being a big plant eater is actually very good
because you can fill up with enormous amounts of food,
digest it very, very slowly, and this will gradually
release small amounts of energy over long periods of time,
Ideal for keeping you going through a long winter,
But surviving the Ice Age isn't all about food,
You have to keep warm too,
Smaller animals can't hold on to as much heat for their size,
The bigger you are,
the more heat you can bury deep inside your body,
away from your skin and the cold outside,
So in a cold environment, it's good to be big,
As plant eaters got bigger and bigger,
that impacted other Ice Age creatures,
like the predators that ate them,
Smilodon, the largest ever saber-toothed cat,
You wouldn't really want one of those leaping out at you from behind,
like, the skate park, would you?
And that's probably what it would do,
To take down giant plant eaters, it needed weapons to match,
Huge paws to pin down its victims,
and the killer blow came from 11-inch sabers,
If your prey is big, right?
If herbivores are getting bigger, predators have to be big too,
It's like an arms race, An evolutionary arms race,
And it led to one of the biggest predators since the dinosaurs,
Arctotherium,
The largest bear the world has ever seen,
Even on all fours, it was around six feet tall,
It took down its prey using enormous paws,
On two legs, it would have been 14 feet tall,
Being that big comes with another advantage,
The Arctotherium was so big it could scare away its rivals,
meaning it had its pick of the food,
Big claws, big teeth,
Intimidation alone is a pretty good strategy,
But there were exceptions,
where being big became a disadvantage,
Gigantopithecus was a real beast,
It was the largest ape that's ever lived,
But that was a problem,
Nearly twice the height of a human,
Gigantopithecus needed a lot of food,
Imagine a world where forests are drying out
where fruiting trees are fruiting less,
Then you're in trouble,
And that's where things came a little unstuck,
Depending on large amounts of fruit made these giants vulnerable,
Fruit trees were disappearing, which made it impossible to adapt fast enough,
Their population dwindled and eventually disappeared,
By the time the Ice Age ended,
giants had had their day,
Huge size made them increasingly vulnerable,
A new, smaller hunter had arrived,
hungry for all those big Ice Age animals,
Us,