when the first European settlers arrived in America they quickly found out that life was not easy there and struggled to adapt to environments much different than those found in Europe and they may have never gotten their feet under them if it wasn't for Native Americans who essentially taught them how to live off the lands sharing their techniques on crop cultivation food preservation and hunting among other things their sheer expertise was and still is impressive with some stories even recalling how lone Hunters were able to take down fully grown bison by themselves with just a bow this may sound like a legendary bordering on fictitious feet but perhaps it wasn't a big deal for these Hunters considering that their forefathers had a deal with now extinct animals that would put any creature in America today to shame when it comes to ferocity size or plain bizarreness for now scientists believe that paleo Indian Native Americans first reached America as far back as 30,000 years ago entering a world dominated by animals no longer around many looked quite similar to some creatures we still have While others went extinct in the US but can still be found elsewhere and then there were those that not only are gone for good but were unbelievable and being unlike anything today making it a mystery of how Native Americans managed to thrive alongside them and these are a few of the most iconic speaking of unbelievable things let me tell you a little bit about perhaps the most advanced browser ever Opera so I'm sure many of you have heard of Opera but for those who haven't it's completely free web browser which is some cool built-in features one of which is Arya which is basically your pocket AI that you can ask any question Under the Sun with the added bonus of being at your fingertips at all times so if you have a specific question while watching one of our videos such as how many teeth the Triceratops has or why you should subscribe feel free just ask our friend Arya and if you want to dig deeper into a question you have while watching our video or anyone else's for that matter Opera has this built-in pop out video player that lets you continue watching the video while browsing literally any other website totally automatic and completely resizable as well for the best burning question searching to viewing experience and a personal favorite feature of mine is the tab Islands I'm one of those guys that has a million tabs open at once especially when I'm making the video this can be a massive pain as I literally have no idea where things are but Opera has this tab Island feature that allows you to have all the tabs organized by content which basically lets me make the videos faster for you all and that's only a couple of the many features so check out the link below to download Opera today and let me know what you all think and now back to the video the first animal up is a mammal though it look more like a dinosaur than anything else and this is the glyptotherium from a distance you could have confused it for some kind of ankylosaur due to its extensive armoring that covered its body but in reality it was an armadillo of all things belonging to the famous sub family known as the glyptodon members of this group are best known for their size with individuals ranging from the size of a dog all the way to a small car and glyp aium was among the biggest with adults measuring over 2 m or 6. 5 ft in length while weighing 1,00 165 kg or 2568 lb equal to the weight of a large male giraffe its heavy nature was mostly due to its giant carapus that encompassed its body and was made of numerous osteoderms AKA bony plates this armored Dome was one of the signature features seen in glyptodon yet gum was unique in that its armor was much taller and thicker compared to the others with its osteoderms sometimes being 2 in or 5 cm thick that's 8 times the thickness of the thickest ctis shells today this increased density gave the Giant armadillo a massive boost in defense against predators which was helped by the fact that its bony armor extended across its head and tail too surprisingly despite its extensive defenses the glyptotherium wasn't as cumbersome as you'd think since its osteoderms were typically not very fused and thus providing a modest degree of flexibility this hint of agility could have helped maneuvering away from danger yet when forced to fight glyp aium didn't just have its armor to rely on but it's tail too unlike the famous dodicis which had a spiked club tail glyptotherium straight up just had a tubed tail that was extremely bony and arranged in rings with pointed ends at first paleont toist believed its purpose was strictly for display and while this is still an accepted use there are now some ideas that the tail was possibly a weapon as well this thought stems from the tail Rings which were composed in Mobile bands meaning they could be easily maneuvered around despite being layered in osteoderms on top of this the tail muscle itself was quite powerful indicating it could swing the tail with surprising speed possibly up to 40 km or 25 mph leading to the assumption that it might have whacked a few Predators with it and it's clear that regardless of how it used its tail the glyp ethereum was very successful as it could be found throughout Texas Louisiana Florida and South Carolina up until around 15,700 years ago despite the success the glyp theum was still not an obstacle for Native Americans in fact evidence suggests that it was actually an occasional food item with a fossil site in Texas showing that humans had partially consumed a specimen's osteoderms while another site bore numerous skulls that all had been butchered in a similar manner additionally we know that other glyptodon were hunted by indigenous populations too including the better equipped odorus thus making the hunting of glyptotherium quite likely however not all animals that lived alongside Native Americans were righte for the picking as demonstrated by the direwolf unlike its name was suggest direwolves weren't really wolves rather a unique genus of canines scientifically known as anisian who are more related to Jackal than anything else from a distance though you may still have confused them for a wolf just a very large reddish wolf as on average direwolves were about as big as the largest recorded Grey Wolves while possibly getting bigger with an estimated maximum size of 110 kg or 243 lbs this makes them the largest known canines and one of the biggest canons overall surprise surprise they also had a terrifying bite to match its size thanks to a powerful jaw and dentition that had similar adaptations to those seen in hyenas which all led to direwolves possessing a record-breaking bite with one study founding them to have had the strongest bite of any canine this Powers thought to have been an adaptation for taking down large prey which included ground sloths horses pronghorns bison and mastadons and to make these guys even more deadly it's believed to have been a highly social pack Hunter who lived in groups of between 12 and 30 individuals making them one menacing animal to deal with their social structure coupled with deadly bites helped make them one of the most successful carnivores around and in many cases the most common one sometimes outnumbering others by thousands as seen in the LaBrea tar pit where the direwolves had 2,000 more individuals recovered than any other animal such stats are pretty impressive and bad news for the humans that lived alongside them as they would have had to compete for resources no easy feat fortunately or rather fortunately no direct evidence of confrontations between the two are known but this might one day change yet direwolves weren't the only carnivore that humans had to contend with as at the time canines weren't the only threats stalking the lands as pretty intimidating felines were plentiful too with the scariest likely being the Smilodon this killer cat was no joke and it's no doubt one of the scariest felids that we know of thanks to it striking appearance and giant teeth and it wasn't only terrifying based off of looks because smile nadon was also one of the largest predators of its time easily outclassing direwolves and being one of the largest cats to ever live period with estimates giving the largest species Smilodon populator a weight similar to that of smaller adult Kodiak bears meanwhile the other two smile iton species while lighter were by no means tiny with the smile iton Fatalis being as big as the largest known Lions while smileton grasis was Jaguar sized thankfully for humans only one species the Fatalis is known to have coexisted with them in America since populator was restricted to South America while the grasis had died out 500,000 years previously despite not being the biggest of its kind Fatalis still definitely held an edge over most in the size department and even then its stature wasn't really its main asset with its true not so secret weapon being its massive saber teeth these crazy looking teeth were in reality elongated canines that could grow up to 11 in or 28 cm in length making them longer than the teeth a t-rex with such formidable weapons Smilodon was not after small Critters but rather megap fonal herbivores like giant bison camels glyptotherium mastadons young mammoths and horses it's currently thought that Smilodon would dispatch such large prey by sinking or thrusting its canines into the victim's throat delivering death very quickly because this method targeted a soft body part and its teeth were so long and sharp the Smilodon really didn't need a powerful bite leading to a relatively weak weak Chomp that was comparable to that of a jaguars which is much smaller than the Fatalis nevertheless it bite worked wonders and it wasn't even the only tool that Smilodon used as like modern-day cats it had razor sharp retractable claws that it further deployed in order to grip tightly onto prey during hunts furthermore examinations of its heel bone suggest that it was an exceptional jumper who could reach 12 ft or 3. 7 m in height allowing it to easily leap on a prey that could be many times its size outside a physical attributes the Smilodon was still designed to be a hunting machine with scans of the skull indicating a similar brain structure to that of modern felines showing that it had a heightened sense of sight hearing and coordination over its limbs resulting in it being one menacing package that could have in fact been multiplied as certain fossil sites contain numerous smileton within close proximity leading to the idea that it may have been a social creature that hunted and cooperated in Prides paleontologists also think that it caused nothing but problem for Native Americans playing the role of a competitor like the direwolf since it went after a lot of the same animals that Native Americans did and this competition was spread far and wide considering the fact that smilodons have been found in nearly every part of America and the competition also probably got lethal at times as well considering that both occupied a similar Niche and lived in the same areas some people may have even been targeted for food too a smile it on size and weapons made it easily capable of taking down unsuspecting or unarmed humans this is backed by findings of other felines including earlier saber-tooth cats which were known to have definitely prayed upon hominins even today about 500 people are killed every year by Big Cats despite modern technology and low populations so it's not a stretch to assume that at least a few humans got saber-toothed making Smilodon one of the last animals you'd want to run into however for Native Americans Smilodon was still not the biggest threat around and I mean that literally for the largest Predator that they shared the lands with was a bear the aradus better known as the giant short-faced bear this Behemoth was a member of the tartin a group of IDs whose only living species is the spectacled bear thus far only two species are known of pranis and simus with simus being the only one who lived alongside Native Americans persisting in the US until 12,800 years ago along with being the Lone Survivor simus was by far the biggest of the two and was also one of the largest known terrestrial carnivoran mammals of all time possibly reaching 957 kg or 2,110 lb which exceeds the weight of certain mediumsized therapods like the teratophoneus a literal Tyrannosaur along with heftiness Arcus had an impressive frame as well standing at human eye level while on all fours and reaching 3.
4 M or 11 ft when standing on two legs quite the sight literally naturally like others in its environment arctus was well equipped sporting an extremely robust skeleton powerful Limbs and Paws fitted with large claws its mouth too was fairly daunting being supported by a broad and Powerful skull while being lined with thickened incizors and canines this all paints a rather scary picture but the aradus may not have had as much blood lust as one would think because research suggest that it may have been an opportunistic omnivore that's diet depended on where it lived for example specimens in the laa tar pit of California had mostly herbivorous diets while those located far north had a more carnivorous diet showing that this bear wasn't all about killing prey rather just about getting calories in the easiest way possible paleontologists also think its diet was influenced by how many predators it lived alongside since because it was so big and sluggish it had a hard time competing with more agile Rivals leading to ding switches in order to decrease competition this does not mean that it was a pushover though as numerous large megap like mammoths and mastadons show signs of arcus bites despite being found in areas associated with humans and other Predators on top of this paleontologists speculate that arctodus would have actually utilized its size to occasionally scare Predators including humans away from kills that they had made forcing them to make a decision to abandon their wouldbe dinner or take on the Beast itself which probably would have been an easy choice although other animal animal around were possibly even more risky to confront as some were basically Titans in other words mammoths and mastadons specifically Native Americans would have seen the likes of Colombian mammoths woolly mammoths pygmy mammoths and the American Mastadon all of them were gigantic in size except for the pygmy Mammoth who suffered from Island dwarfism thanks to being stranded on the Channel Islands but besides it these trunk behemoths were absolute units that rivaled present day elephants the biggest one the Colombian Mammoth was actually larger than African bush elephants having a shoulder height of 3. 75 M or 12. 3 ft while weighing 12.
5 tons the more famous woly Mammoth wasn't as Hefty but was still a tank being around 8 tons and pretty similar in height to modern-day elephants meanwhile American mascons were the shortest of the three being about 7 ft or 2. 1 M tall but it was still seriously Hefty due to its stocky build resulting in it possibly weighing 80% more than elephants of the same height with the D sometimes coming in at 11 tons and to go along with their immense sizes these three species had very thick skin and in the case of the Mastadon and Woolly Mammoth dense fur coats on top of that which helped protect not against just the cold but attacks too and of course like nearly every probo cidian the trunk Giants had their iconic tusks as well which acted almost like Swiss pocket knives being able to be used for lifting digging defense and Gathering food such a tool made these guys very resourceful and this is reflected by their success throughout the pine being located in virtually every habitat with macadons preferring coniferous forests the woolly mammoths sticking to open steps and the Colombian Mammoth living in grasslands or Aspen Parklands with such a range interactions with Native Americans was inevitable and evidence actually suggests that despite their near mystical sizes they like many others fell to the prowess of human Hunters in fact humans basically started hunting these Giants from the get-go once they reached America with certain specimens dating to over 20,000 years bearing marks that match injuries made by man-made weapons although for the most part it seems that in the beginning humans were not entirely great at hunting such large game and certain simulations have concluded that most hunts would have ended quite badly as primitive Spears mostly shattered against the thick skin am mastadons and mammoths instead of penetrating however things began to heat up roughly 13,000 years ago with the beginning of the Clovis culture this was an archaeological culture defined by Clovis points which were projectile points with lated fluted shapes it is thought that the Clovis people were hunter gatherers and masters of hunting megap possibly being the first humans to ever extensively hunt mammoths and to a lesser extent hunt macadons and throughout the US multiple kill sites have been found with the remains of both Juvenile and adult probo cians It is believed that the Hunter would have targeted the torsos of these behemoths which were not protected by their ribs and would then proceed to track the animal after an initial attack until it bled out one known female mammoth from the no Mammoth kill site showed that these hunts could get really Grizzly with the containing eight buried projectiles they were located in its skull shoulder blade ribs and stomach after a successful hunt these meapa would not only play an important role in quenching hunger but culture and Technology too as people would routinely Butcher and process carcasses in order to produce Fuel and a variety of tools including lithic flakes cores flake knives Cleaver Choppers spear points and Bone wrenches and they also created art with the bones themselves making Engravings which were then carried around as a portable form of Art and if even the Titans were taken down you can bet that the smaller cousin the pygmy Mammoth didn't escape this unfortunate relationship with humans either as people entered their Islands about 13 th000 years ago which also coincides with the extinction of pygmy mammoths kill figure another animal that also had a rather one-sided relationship with early Native Americans was the camelops this name may sound underwhelming and it definitely didn't impress by being the biggest around but it was still highly unique in that it was a camel Living in America something that would be quite an odd sight today studies show that camelops truly was a full-fledged camel though was possibly distinct in appearance as no one knows if it had two humps one hump or no humps since their bodies typically did not fossilize well though we do know that it was taller than living camels being about 20% taller at the shoulders due to extensively elongated legs like its living relatives it's believed that camelops was a grazer who fed on Co shrubs and could be found mainly in western United States plus Tennessee to the east trackways show that it would routinely travel long distances on its quest for food sometimes taking them into the path of Native Americans who were known to have hunted them nevertheless in defiance of its smaller size and lack of armor or weapons camelops seems to have been hunted far less often than other megap with the majority of specimens being Scot free of damage furthermore sites that have large amounts of camelops remains lack stone tools assigned to some paleontologists that they were't a staple for humans and a possibly even more unique creature that Native Americans would have seen but seem to have left alone too was a beaver the castoroides its size has led to the moniker the giant beaver and this is fitting considering that the average adult was 1. 9 M or 6.
2 ft long while some could get up to 2. 2 M or 7.
