Join the Fun!

Most of the animals shown here existed during the Pleistocene, otherwise known as Ice Age era, which lasted from around 2.58 million to 11m7 thousand years ago. As the term Ice Age signifies, it was a glacial period where most of the northern hemisphere was covered in, you guessed it, ice. The glaciations happened on and off in steady cycles which lasted from 41,000 to 100,000 years.

You May Also Like:

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

164points

POST

Kookamunga 3 years ago

Heavy Metal Wombat!

9points

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

158points

POST

IguanaCircusGirl2000 3 years ago

It looks like the smaller shark told a great joke to the larger one....

209points

As you probably know by now, all of the ancestor species shown here are extinct. Almost all, if not all of these species went extinct in the so-called Quaternary period (2.58 million years before the present) in the Late Pleistocene. This period is marked by numerous megafaunal and other extinctions. This pulse extinction is characterized by the fact that there was a widespread absence of ecological successors, which caused a major shift in faunal habitats and relationships.

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

151points

POST

Stille20 3 years ago

It all done with perspective ;)

15points

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

146points

POST

Kookamunga 3 years ago

That giant guy could pick up a SUV and throw it.

64points

Fact: life on Earth has suffered 5 major extinction events, and is going through one so-called Holocene extinction event right now. An extinction event is a widespread and rapid decrease in biodiversity. The greatest extinction event killed 90 to 96 per cent of all species. Scientists argue over the exact number of extinction events life has gone through, ranging from five to as many as twenty. The current extinction event is different from others because human activity plays a huge hand in it.

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

140points

POST

Mangaboi 3 years ago

The clouded leopard only goes up to a humans knees, so this is about the size of a lion.

63points

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

136points

POST

Stille20 3 years ago

I remember as a child being fascinated when I first saw a Capybara this is wild...it's like a giant Guinea pig

54points

Let's hope you learned something new today. If you didn't, or if you're up to learn even more cool stuff, Bored Panda is here to help you satisfy this thirst for knowledge. Here's our latest edition of "Today I Learned" posts that our community loves. Too general, want to learn something more animal-centric? No problem. Want to know more about silly bird names that ornithologists came up with? Or perhaps you want to know what insects really look like when they're flying? Let's not end this post about extinct species with a sad note: here's a story about reappeared elephant shrew species that we thought went extinct 50 years ago.

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

132points

POST

kath morgan 3 years ago

I wonder if it did the same cute pose as modern armadillos

28points

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

131points

POST

denzoren 3 years ago

Just for information...the current bison is approximately 2.5m or 8feet tall...that other guy could wreck a bus and not even break a sweat.

89points

Roman shared: "My favorite animal is the one I’m drawing right now. So every time I get a new favorite. Can you imagine that ancient rodents were the size of a rhinoceros, and extinct rhinos led the life of giraffes and were the tallest animals in the world?!"

#10

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

127points

POST

R Carson 3 years ago

Terrifying no matter what size.

83points

#11

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

127points

POST

Mimi 3 years ago

I didn’t know anything could make an elephant look small...

56points

"My wife and business partner Alexandra Antonova (Uchytel) is a great writer. She has so many cool ideas. Now we’re working on one idea—Prehistories (a series of prehistoric fairy tales). Now all we have to do is find a publisher."

#12

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

125points

POST

denzoren 3 years ago

No ice age no fluff.

58points

#13

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

122points

POST

SomeCrazyDogLover 3 years ago

Why does the extinct cheetah look like an annoyed older sibling XD

84points

#14

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

120points

POST

Jo Choto 3 years ago

So Asian elephants are relatively small, which would indicate that the mammoth was smaller than a modern day African elephant. Is that actually correct?

32points

#15

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

117points

POST

Lil Prime 3 years ago

Looks like the extinct ones saying DON'T YOU EVER TALK TO ME OR MY SON EVER AGAIN!!!

70points

#16

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

116points

POST

Hannah Edwards 3 years ago

Spectacled bears are some of the most adorable on the planet.

45points

#17

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

116points

POST

ggus44 3 years ago

The extinct one looks more like a giant "anta" (south american tapir).

51points

#18

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

114points

POST

ggus44 3 years ago

Looks like it was 1/3 zebra :)

41points

#19

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

114points

POST

Stille20 3 years ago

That would be terrifying.. Ostriches are terrifying

54points

#20

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

114points

POST

allan dorfling 3 years ago

Also Afrikaans. Seekoei

21points

#21

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

111points

POST

denzoren 3 years ago

Adapted to eating leaves that were high up in their habitat...incase anyone was wondering.

36points

#22

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

111points

POST

DuchessDegu 3 years ago

I LIKE TO MOVE IT MOVE IT, AND CAUSE AN EARTHQUAKE

9points

#23

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

108points

POST

Juds Conne 3 years ago

Both equally magnificent. So glad the Alaskan moose still exists.

43points

#24

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

105points

POST

Elin Noller 3 years ago

jesus...boars are huge, this would be gigantic.

36points

#25

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

103points

POST

R Carson 3 years ago

Cute.

13points

#26

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

102points

POST

R Carson 3 years ago

cuddly

22points

#27

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

101points

POST

Joran Quinten 3 years ago

A giant Nope Parrot

81points

Woman Put A Water Fountain With A Camera In Her Yard, Here Are 24 Photos Of Regular Visitors (New Pics)

See Also on Bored Panda

“Ma’am I Live Here”: Woman Refuses To Back Out Of Driveway, Learns A Lesson The Hard Way

#36

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

78points

POST

Leigh C. 3 years ago

Looks like the whale in Pinocchio

27points

#37

39 Visual Comparisons Of The Size Of Long-Extinct Animals With Their Modern Relatives

Final score:

71points

POST

Goth mouse (they/them) 3 years ago

I wonder if the giant gelada grazed on grass like the modern one?

14points

Fascinated by music, movies and sitcoms, I'm passionate about social media and can't live without the internet, especially for all the cute dog and cat pictures out there. I wish the day had about 40 hours to be able to do everything I want.

Read less »

This dude right here? He works as a Community Manager at Bored Panda. Has no back-story, cause his spine works just fine. He writes about himself in third-person, and in first-person about others. Fell in love with storytelling and cannot let that love go. Now, he's here to help you make your own story simply beautiful. Secretly makes cute music samples and writes stories in the dark that nobody has ever heard of before.

Read less »

What do you think ?

POST

Burs 3 years ago

Great thread. It might have been nice to add a common factor to see the scale of the animals. Like a solute representing a human for example. (Not a banana for scale people…)

68points

Nikki Sevven 3 years ago

Not even an extinct giant banana for scale?

49points

Anyone-for-tea? 3 years ago

And a timeline at the bottom to see when they went extinct.

12points

M O'Connell 3 years ago

Even just a map-like scale down in the corner. For instance, I have no idea how big a spectacled bear is (I mean, I do now because I looked it up).

4points

Marnie 3 years ago

I agree. I honestly don't have a great sense of the size of the modern varieties of a lot of these.

2points

Marika Miettinen 3 years ago

I was hoping that there would be a banana for scale.. maybe a 170cm tall banana.

2points

Mimi M 3 years ago

I came to comment the same.

1point

Mimi 3 years ago

This was super interesting! You should send out more of these articles, BoredPanda!

19points

Jo Choto 3 years ago

This was really cool. Sad that it didn't get a lot of traffic. I was thinking about why animals have shrunk so much, and then I remembered reading an article in Discover magazine a couple of years ago about how creatures grown in carbon dioxide rich/lower oxygen atmospheres grow much bigger. I think back in the day, that was the earth's atmosphere and as oxygen levels have risen over millennia, the animal world has shrunk. So as we continue to churn out carbon dioxide with more people, and wipe down forest land, will we go back to that ancient atmosphere and end up with giant animals again?

11points

Ozacoter 3 years ago

Yes and no. There was a moment in time where oxigen levels were higher, allowing animals like insects to be big (like the Carboniferous). But its not the case here. Most of this animals got extinct as a combination of prehistoric human hunting and the end of the ice age.

12points

Grumble O'Pug 3 years ago

A high oxygen earth is a colder one, so size is an advantage.

3points

Christina Uhlir 3 years ago (edited)

No, Jo, we are going to total extinction of all forms of life on this planet and homo sapiens will be the last to go; not fair.

1point

memyselfandI 3 years ago

I was thinking about it too, it’s possible that one part of it was that predators would normally hunt the smallest of a group, so it pays to be big, but humans hunt the biggest of a group for trophies, so it pays to be small. Of course, there’s other conditions, but that might be one of them.

1point

E. Gadd 7 months ago (edited)

>> I was thinking about why animals have shrunk so much>>Think no more. Its humans. Most everywhere humans have lived, other larger wild animals have gone extinct, leaving only smaller relatives. The process still continues today with trophy hunting, which picks off the largest animals still extant. Some of the largest of their species still survive (Polar bears, blue whales) but in remote regions and even so their populations have sadly been decimated in the past by hunting. But... they are stlil around!

0points

L. Scott Cleaves 2 years ago

How much does available food supply play a part in this? Probably a lot.

0points

Prilsy 3 years ago

I don't know but there was something on the news some days ago about how people had let their goldfish free in lakes and they grew enormously (much like the size of Koi), damaging the natural fauna. So perhaps they just adapt to their natural environment?

-1point

Load More Comments

POST

Burs 3 years ago

Great thread. It might have been nice to add a common factor to see the scale of the animals. Like a solute representing a human for example. (Not a banana for scale people…)

68points

Nikki Sevven 3 years ago

Not even an extinct giant banana for scale?

49points

Anyone-for-tea? 3 years ago

And a timeline at the bottom to see when they went extinct.

12points

M O'Connell 3 years ago

Even just a map-like scale down in the corner. For instance, I have no idea how big a spectacled bear is (I mean, I do now because I looked it up).

4points

Marnie 3 years ago

I agree. I honestly don't have a great sense of the size of the modern varieties of a lot of these.

2points

Marika Miettinen 3 years ago

I was hoping that there would be a banana for scale.. maybe a 170cm tall banana.

2points

Mimi M 3 years ago

I came to comment the same.

1point

Mimi 3 years ago

This was super interesting! You should send out more of these articles, BoredPanda!

19points

Jo Choto 3 years ago

11points

Ozacoter 3 years ago

12points