Pleistocene megafauna megafauna which are now extinct: giant lizards ("Gallotia goliath"), giant rats ("Canariomys bravoi" and "Canariomys tamarani") and giant tortoises ("Geochelone burchardi" and "Geochelone vulcanica"), among others. Pleistocene megafauna Pleistocene megafauna is the set of large animals that lived on Earth during the Pleistocene epoch and became extinct during the Quaternary extinction event. Megafauna is a term used to describe animals with an adult body weight of over 44 kg (97 lbs). The last glacial period, commonly referred to as the 'Ice Age', spanned 125,000 to 14,500 years ago and was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age
Pleistocene rewilding The mountain tapir is the only extant non-tropical species of tapir. Predators of mountain tapirs include cougars, bears, and, less commonly, jaguars. Good introduction areas might include forested ecosystems of the west and east coasts, and the more scrub-like or wetland ecosystem of the south. During the Pleistocene, large populations of Proboscideans lived in North America, such as the Columbian mammoth and the American mastodon. The mastodons all became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene era, as did the mammoths of North America. However, an extant relative of the mammoth is the Asian elephant. It now resides only in