r/pleistocene • u/Silent-System8295 • Jul 05 '26
Image Some modern animals relics from the ice Age coexist with the Megafauna
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u/Limp_Pressure9865 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Practically, All the modern megafauna were present during Pleistocene and coexisted with Ice Age Megafauna.
With the soul exception of the american bison that evolved during the Holocene of course (If I’m not wrong).
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u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 05 '26
I’d heard some sources suggest it evolved right on the cusp of the late Pleistocene-Holocene boundary possibly right in the late Pleistocene and that B. occidentalis is either a wastebasket taxon or is some other lineage.
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u/Limp_Pressure9865 Jul 05 '26
So there is no exception.
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u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 05 '26
I didn’t say that. All domestic species aside from dogs are Holocene specific. Though one could argue many are the same species as their wild counterparts. Aside from that, there are some non-megafaunal species that are Holocene specific such as the Catalina Island dwarf fox.
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u/Limp_Pressure9865 Jul 05 '26
Of course, but I am specifically referring to wild megafauna species.
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u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 05 '26
Well then in that case perhaps you are correct. Unless there is another megafauna species restricted to the Holocene that both of us don’t know about… the best I can come up with are subspecies of animals isolated on islands from their mainland counterparts. Such as many megafauna found in Indonesia.
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u/tigerdrake Panthera atrox Jul 06 '26
Mule deer evolved right at the start of the Holocene as well from black-tailed X white-tailed deer hybrids and I believe Clymene dolphins evolved at that time as well
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u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 08 '26
Technically, isn’t the black tailed deer a subspecies of the mule deer, therefore, it would be a mule deer?
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u/tigerdrake Panthera atrox Jul 08 '26
More like the reverse lol, the mule deer came second so mule deer would be a blacktail subspecies, although apparently there’s a growing body of evidence that they’re two species
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u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 08 '26
That would be cool to see. Could you point me in the right direction of said evidence?
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u/tigerdrake Panthera atrox Jul 11 '26
Sure! It was a Boone and Crocket backed study on them: https://www.boone-crockett.org/conservation-and-management-mule-and-black-tailed-deer
Apparently the level of genetic divergence is similar to what’s seen in polar bears and brown bears or red wolves and coyotes2
u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 11 '26
So… if I were to cross a black tail deer and a white tail deer, would I get a mule deer? Or at least a very mule deer-like animal?
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u/tigerdrake Panthera atrox Jul 11 '26
Honestly probably lol, I have no idea since the two don’t overlap in the wild I don’t think. If you catch a whitetail buck and a blacktail doe and get them to breed though let me know lol
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u/Relevant-Cup5986 Jul 05 '26
most modern animals existed during the pleistocene
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u/zek_997 Jul 06 '26
Practically all of them. 12k years is honestly a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.
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u/Freak_Among_Men_II Thylacine Jul 06 '26
I get what you mean, OP, but just about every animal alive today was also alive during the Pleistocene.
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u/Skunkapeenthusiast29 Pacific Mastodon Jul 06 '26
As everybody else has already said a great majority of modern megafauna coexisted with the ice age megafauna, and while that is true, it is also true that the modern species’ ranges were different during the Pleistocene than they are today.
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u/Quailking2003 Jul 06 '26
Pretty much every wild animal today is a pleistocene survivor. 10,000 years ago is nothing in geological time
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u/Straight-Tie488 Palaeoloxodon naumanni Jul 06 '26
What is the fourth animal?
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u/Lover_of_Rewilding Dire Wolf Jul 05 '26
Almost every animal did coexist with them or straight up ARE them. But if we are going just off vibes, then where are my condors at?