Author Archives: twilightbeasts

The bear necessities

Posted on July 2, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Humans and bears have a strange relationship. On the one hand we see them as lovable, smart, curious creatures (think Baloo from the Jungle Book). On the other, we have taken great pains to exterminate them wherever and whenever we … Continue reading →

Posted in Cave Bear | Tagged Cave bear, Cave Lion, Chauvet, DNA, Extinction, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens, Last Glacial Maximum, Panethera spelaea, Pleistocene, Ursus deningeri, Ursus ingressus, Ursus spelaeus | 4 Comments

A prickly giant with a very long tongue

Posted on June 23, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Australia’s native fauna are undeniably odd and none more so than the curious monotremes (the Monotremata). These egg-laying, milk-producing, furry creatures are mammals, but with organs and body parts that may be more at home in birds or reptiles including … Continue reading →

Posted in Giant Echidna | Tagged Australia, Dr John Winthrop Hackett, Ernest Le Soeuf, Giant Echnida, long-beaked echidna, Ludwig Glauert, Mammoth Cave, Monotreme, Tachyglossus aculeatus, Western Australian Museum, Zaglossus bruijni, Zaglossus hacketti | 5 Comments

The last of its kind

Posted on June 12, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Twilight beasts come in all shapes and sizes, with some being more familiar, like the sabretooth cat, Smilodon, and others less so, like the strange mini-sheep, Myotragus. Although we have some fossils, there are still a lot of awesome things … Continue reading →

Posted in Chalicothere | Tagged Ancylotherium hennigi, Chalicothere, Eocene, Moropus, Myotragus balearicus, Perissodactyla, Smilodon | 6 Comments

Impressions of the Pleistocene

Posted on May 28, 2014 by twilightbeasts

In 1915, prominent American palaeontologist, Henry Fairfield Osborn, published Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life, and Art. Drawing from his three-week-tour of archaeological sites across Paleolithic Europe, Osborn’s book integrated archaeology, geology and prehistory. Painstaking in its … Continue reading →

Posted in Scientific Art | Tagged American Museum of Natural History, Charles Knight, Cro-magnon, Font-de-Gaume, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Mammoth, Neanderthal, Smilodon, Stephen Jay Gould, Woolly Mammoth | 7 Comments

Galloping across the steppes

Posted on May 21, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Around 50 million years ago, long before the Epoch of the Twilight Beasts, a little mammal, Eohippus, scurried about in the forests of North America. This creature, about the size of an average dog, was the ancestor of the magnificent … Continue reading →

Posted in Horse | Tagged Aurignacian, Chauvet Caves, Eocene, Eohippus, Equus caballus, Hippidion, Jean Auel, Lascaux Caves, Miocene, Pliocene, Przewalski's horse, Tarpan, The Valley of Horses, Vogelherd horse | 51 Comments

The mouse-goat crocodile chimera

Posted on May 16, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Lets be honest, size really does matter. Especially when it comes to being noticed. An ‘average sized’ creature would really make an impressive headline; ‘Mammoth discovered, the most average one yet’. Crowd pleasing adjectives such as ‘the biggest’, ‘the largest’, … Continue reading →

Posted in Mouse Goat | Tagged Dorothea Bate, Fosters Rule, Island Rule, Majorca, Mouse goat, Myotragus balearicus, Pinocchio rex, Ruminants, Trowelb, Tyrannosaurus rex | 10 Comments

The one with the sabretooth

Posted on May 13, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Smilodon is the genus of extinct sabretooth that everyone knows. Stocky, hugely muscled, with canines that protrude far below the jaw, it is the archetypal Pleistocene predator. It was a member of the machairodontinae, an extinct subfamily of the Felidae … Continue reading →

Posted in Sabre tooth Cat | Tagged American lion, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Canis dirus, Dire Wolf, Friends, Homotherium latidens, Panthera leo atrox, Rancho la Brea, Ross Geller, Sabre tooth cat, Smilodon, Smilodon fatalis, Smilodon gracilis, Smilodon populator, Trowelblazer | 36 Comments

Mr Darwin’s lost sloth

Posted on May 8, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Ground sloths are weird. The two-toed and three-toed varieties of memetic fame that we are left with only hint at the absurdity of different genera such as Eremotherium, Megalonyx, and Nothrotheriops: bear-sized to elephant-sized behemoths, covered in shaggy fur, and sporting … Continue reading →

Posted in Ground Sloth | Tagged Beagle, Charles Darwin, Cueva del Milodon, DNA, Ermotherium, Glyptodon clavipes, Ground sloth, Macrauchenia patachonica, Megalonyx, Mylodon Cave, Mylodon darwinii, Nothrotheriops, Richard Owen, soft tissue | 18 Comments

Clan of the cave hyena

Posted on May 2, 2014 by twilightbeasts

Their deathly hypnotic stare sends shivers down the spine. The long, strong neck gives these amazing creatures additional cause to be feared. Hyenas are infamous for their ferocious ways of hunting in packs (known as cackles, or clans), scavenging carcases and loudly, … Continue reading →

Posted in Hyena | Tagged aardwolf, Brown hyena, Byaena brunnea, Cave hyena, Crocuta crocuta, Hyaena hyaena, Kirkdale Caves, Proteles cristatus, striped hyena, William Buckland | 16 Comments

An elk that wasn’t an elk

Posted on April 30, 2014 by twilightbeasts

To see an Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) in all its glory, visit the National Museum of Ireland, in Dublin. Here, skeletons of this magnificent beast are articulated, proudly towering higher than the visitors. What really stands out are the incredibly enormous … Continue reading →

Posted in Irish Elk | Tagged Eurasian Elk, Fallow Deer, Holocene, Irish Elk, Lascaux Caves, Last Glacial Maximum, Megaloceros gignanteus, Pleistocene | 19 Comments

	The most (and least)… on A very brief introduction to…
	The most (and least)… on The Nipple Tooth
	The most (and least)… on The burrowers
	The most (and least)… on The Stuff Of Night-Mares
	The most (and least)… on The beasts within

	The most (and least)… on A very brief introduction to…
	The most (and least)… on The Nipple Tooth
	The most (and least)… on The burrowers
	The most (and least)… on The Stuff Of Night-Mares
	The most (and least)… on The beasts within