During the last part of the recent ice age, the Pleistocene, which ended only around 10,000 years ago, numerous species of large herbivores, such as mammoths, horses, and ground sloths, wandered through what now is our Chihuahuan Desert. Indeed, ice-age North America has been favorably compared to the present-day savannahs of Africa in terms of the number and variety of such plant eaters. Most became extinct near the end of the Pleistocene, leaving us with today's depauperate fauna.
Not surprisingly, these grazers and browsers were harassed by a variety
of predators, many of them doomed to extinction along with their prey, a few surviving
until today. Among these carnivores was the Dire Wolf. Although contemporary with the
surviving Gray Wolf toward the end of the ice age, Dire Wolves were stockier with
especially massive teeth. This has led some paleontologists to speculate that Dire
Wolves were a North American ecological equivalent to hyaenas, equally able to crush
bones for the fat-rich marrow within them. For once, the common name got it right:
"dire", from the Greek "terrifying"!
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.