Ice Age Mammals: What Carastrophe Overtook Them? (PA-15)
Long before man arrived, unusual forms of wildlife thrived in the heavily forested areas and grassy plains of this region. Largest were the mammoths and the mastodons. Other exotics animals included the wooly rhinoceros, giant bison, bears, ground sloths, and beavers, tapirs and horses, and peccaries and wild hogs. The dire wolf and probably saber tooth tigers were among the many predators hunting these animals. These creatures lived in Indiana during most of the past million years, but they all became extinct by the end of glacial time.

Their remains have been found in lakebeds and swamps that formed about 10,000 years ago. Remains of the musk ox, caribou, moose and elk also verify that Indianas climate was much colder at times in the past.

Our Hoosier State Beneath Us: Paleontology