The time is the Pleistocene epoch, about 2 million to 10,000 years ago. Continent-size ice sheets cover 30 percent of the earth's landmass, and strange creatures rove the landscape. Ice Age Mammals of North America transports you to the world of saber-tooth cats, woolly mammoths, four-hundred-pound beavers, and twenty-foot-tall ground sloths. Illustrated descriptions of the animals form the heart of the book and the final chapter explores why so many of these animals were extinct by the end of Pleistocene time.
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"Plaudits to all author, illustrator, editors, and Mountain Press for this wonderful book on my favorite subject." --Paul S. Martin, emeritus professor of geosciences, University of Arizona Desert Laboratory
About the Author
A series of articles in Life magazine sparked Ian Lange's fascination with Ice Age animals when he was a teenager. Paintings of gargantuan beasts and a photo of a baby woolly mammoth frozen in the arctic tundra set him wondering about the Pleistocene world and its inhabitants. A professor of economic geology at the University of Montana in Missoula, Lange maintains his research of Ice Age animals as a hobby.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
55 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Excellent, even if title is misleading,
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This review is from: Ice Age Mammals of North America (Paperback)
This book is the premier introduction to the Ice Age, and its now-extinct animals, for the uninitiated reader. It is also an excellent work for the serious student or teacher. The art work is superb, the photographs and diagrams are well chosen, and have the additional bonus of actually following the well-written, easily readable text. This saves the reader the burden of having to leaf back and forth as the book is studied. In short, whether you want to read about the Ice Age for serious study or just have pleasure learning about fascinating animals and times, this your book.Now to content: Although the book's title and cover seem to indicate it is about animals only, the first half of the book covers, in a lively, interesting fashion, the various ways the Ice Age may have started, what the glaciers did and how they form, move, and melt, what the climate was like, and a hundred other things that are necessary to truly understand what occurred during this significant period of geological time. Well-chosen inserts explain particular matters. The second half of the book covers the mammals of the Ice Age, with particular emphasis on those living in North America. In addition to the inevitable mammoths and saber-toothed cats, such relatively unknown creatures as the giant short-faced bear, scimitar cat, American lion, Florida cave bear, shrub ox, giant camel, and stag-moose, among many others, are each afforded extensive treatment. The section on toothless animals such as the giant armadillo, the various kinds of enormous ground sloth, etc., is simply one of a kind. You will be amazed and thrilled as you read about each creature in turn, especially as to its size, its diet, where it lived, and its appearance. The book closes, somewhat sadly, with a broad, yet concise examination on why many of these creatures went extinct so suddenly, and man appears to be a primary culprit. Other potential causes are addressed as well. A particularly fine feature is a comprehensive list of museums, parks, and sites across the United States where you may go to see the remains of these animals or learn more about them. An excellent bibliography is supplied at the end. I have read about, and been fascinated by, Ice Age animals for many years, and I can assure you this is the most enjoyable book I have ever seen on the matters I have discussed. The information presented incorporates the latest studies, and is painstakingly accurate. Authors Lange and Norton are to be highly commended on a great book. I recommend it highly.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome to the Ice Age!,
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This review is from: Ice Age Mammals of North America (Paperback)
North America, more than 10,000 years ago, was a very interesting place. Gaint ground sloths, dwarf wolly mommoths, Nebrasks camels (weighing about a ton) and saber-toothed cats are just some of the bizarre animals you will find within the covers of this book. Ice Age Mammals of North America tries to give you a very balanced look at not just the big and hairy, but the more common creatures. Lions, wolves, bears, seals, porcupines, goats, beavers and deer to name just a few.The book begins with what North America was like, why we think ice ages are triggered, goes into detail about the many different animals (which takes up much of the book) and then tells us about the extinction of the megamammals (plus the debates about WHY extinctions happen at all). There are lots of photos and colorful illustrations, sidebars full of fact, lots of humor, a list of museums, fossil sites and websites you can visit. It also has a detailed glossary, bibliography and index. Great for adults and kids. Ian M. Lange really enjoyed doing this work, you can tell, and Dorothy S. Norton's work really helped bring many of the animals to life.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful little book,
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This review is from: Ice Age Mammals of North America (Paperback)
I picked up this book while browsing the gift shop at the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. I was looking for something to serve as a memento for out family trip, something that would serve as evening reading material, and something that would be interesting and educational for the kids. This book seemed like just the ticket. It's nicely presented with rich, glossy pages, and it's chock full of interesting/relevant photographs, black-and-white drawings, and color illustrations.
Lange opens his book with a tantalizing summary of some of the exotic animals that lived during the Pleistocene, and a very short description of a changed world, covered with glaciers. He follows this with a short but very interesting and well-written discussion about continental drift and the interchange of animals between the American and Eurasian continents. I particularly liked his discussion of the discovery of the ice ages, and how he highlights some of the critical evidence such as oxygen-isotope shifts that make it possible for scientists to understand much of the detail of these aspects of earth's history. This section has some exciting discussions regarding earth geology that is sure to excite the young reader and amateur geologist alike. This introductory material, consisting largely of the geological evidence of ice ages, takes up roughly the first 65 pages of the book. With the groundwork laid, Lange begins introducing the reader to the vast array of fascinating animals that lived, geologically speaking, just a moment ago. In many ways these animals were as amazing as the dinosaurs, but while dinosaurs lived millions of years before humans evolved, the remarkable animals of the Pleistocene lived contemporaneously with our ancestors, hunted them, and were hunted by them. The majority of the book's middle section consists of case-by-case descriptions of some of the more interesting (at least in terms of size and ferocity) animals from that period. These include the American lion, glyptodont, mammoth ground sloth, yesterday's camel, titanis bird, long-horned giant bison, wooly mammoth Nebraska camel, American mastodon, dire wolf, Florida cave bear, giant short-faced bear, and of course, Smilodon fatalis - the saber-toothed cat. Lange doesn't just describe these animals; he helps the reader understand how they fit within the context of evolution, the evidence surrounding their discovery, and how they compare and contrast with similar modern-day animals. It's amazing to read of these ancient animals and realize how similar America was to Africa just 12,000 years ago. This leads Lange to his concluding ideas about extinction and the growing sense that early humans were largely responsible for the die-off of large animals in America. Over all this is a wonderful little book that packs a lot of information into relatively few pages. It's not overly simplistic. Quite the opposite, it describes conclusions and results from cutting-edge research. But the book is also very approachable. Its language, presentation, pictures and photographs make this an entertaining as well as informative story, and one that any grown or budding geologist/paleontologist is bound to enjoy.
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