Elephants, lions, and camels roamed Alaska 12,000 years ago.
Alaska's Lost Safari: When Lions Stalked Mammoths
Picture Alaska today: glaciers, tundra, moose, and grizzly bears. Now rewind 12,000 years. The landscape was completely different—a vast, ice-free grassland called Beringia that stretched from Siberia through Alaska to the Yukon. And roaming this ancient Alaskan savanna were elephants, lions, and camels.
Not exactly the animals you'd expect to find near the Arctic Circle.
The Beringian Safari
During the last Ice Age, so much water was locked up in glaciers that sea levels dropped dramatically, exposing a massive land bridge between Asia and North America. This region, called Beringia, wasn't covered in ice despite being surrounded by glaciers. Instead, it was a cold, dry grassland ecosystem—think Mongolian steppe meets African savanna, just much colder.
The "elephants" were woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), standing up to 11 feet tall with curved tusks up to 15 feet long. These weren't tropical elephants shivering in the snow—they were built for the cold with thick fur coats, small ears to prevent frostbite, and a layer of fat up to 4 inches thick.
The lions were either American lions (Panthera atrox) or their close relatives, the cave lions (Panthera spelaea). These weren't your modern African lions either. American lions were about 25% larger, making them one of the biggest cats to ever exist. A male could weigh over 500 pounds—imagine a lion the size of a polar bear.
And the camels? Western camels (Camelops hesternus) grazed Alaska's grasslands in herds. They probably looked similar to modern dromedary camels, complete with a single hump, long neck, and powerful build. Ironically, camels actually evolved in North America millions of years ago before spreading to Asia and going extinct on their home continent.
A Crowded Neighborhood
These three species were just part of an incredible cast of Ice Age megafauna. Sharing the Beringian landscape were:
- Steppe bison—much larger than modern bison, with horn spans reaching 7 feet
- Short-faced bears—the largest predatory land mammal in North America, standing 12 feet tall on hind legs
- Wild horses—ancestors of modern horses, which also evolved in North America
- Woolly rhinoceros—two-horned, fur-covered tanks weighing up to 6,000 pounds
- Saiga antelope—odd-looking antelopes with bulbous noses
Alaska 12,000 years ago had more biodiversity of large mammals than the Serengeti has today.
What Happened to Them?
Between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago, this entire ecosystem collapsed. The youngest mammoth bones found in Alaska date to about 13,800 years ago. Horses and bison lasted until around 12,500 years ago. By 10,000 years ago, only the musk ox remained.
For decades, scientists debated whether humans hunted these animals to extinction. But recent research points to a different culprit: climate change and habitat loss. As the Ice Age ended, Alaska became warmer and wetter. The dry grasslands transformed into wetlands, bogs, and eventually the tundra and taiga forests we see today.
This process, called paludification (the spread of waterlogged peat soils), eliminated the grazing habitat that mammoths, horses, bison, and camels depended on. The lions and bears lost their prey. Within a few thousand years, an entire world vanished.
Today, only fossils remain—mammoth tusks emerging from thawing permafrost, camel bones in museum collections, and the genetic legacy of these animals in the DNA of their distant relatives. Alaska's lost safari is a reminder that even the mightiest creatures can disappear when their world changes too quickly.