South American had been cut off from the rest of the world for 30 million years. In this time, all sorts of huge, outlandish creatures have been able to evolve. Animals not found anywhere else on the planet. For 40 million years, the plains of South America have been ruled by an awesome group of predators…the aptly named Terror Birds.
Since splitting from Antarctica 30 million years ago, South America has been isolated from the world and as a result, its animals are unique.
Near the end of the Pleistocene, things got much, much colder. For the last 50 million years, the world had been getting slowly colder. But something else had helped it tip it over the edge – a change in the Earth’s orbit had taken it further from the sun. This had brought on an Ice Age. Conditions for all life had become
extremely hazardous. 150,000 years ago was in the full grip of the Ice Age. It was much colder compared to the later Ice Age and, because it’s dry, lots of different kinds of grass grew there. But 10,000 years ago, it all changed. Ice was disappearing because of global warming.
