Ghost of the Heart and Extinct Pleistocene Mammals!!!

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The hunters stopped to rest, gazing at the beautiful sight of the meadow. Several hunters started pointing across the meadow at what appeared to be a large brown rock. It was an unusual rock since it appeared to be moving. The hunters jabbered amongst themselves, watching and pointing at this strange sight. Chayton wanted a closer look and found a place where the hunters could jump from boulder to boulder across the roaring river. The other hunters followed Chayton, sneaking across the soggy meadow and hiding behind trees and willow bushes where they could find them. Chayton quietly stalked this odd-looking rock, keeping the wind in his face and moving in harmony with the blowing tree limbs and bushes.

Chayton hoped that this rock-like thing did not hear the sound of his moccasins sinking in the muddy soil. The other hunters mimicked Chayton’s movements, only taking a step when he did. When the hunters reached this strange rock, they stared in amazement. They had heard the stories around the
campfire about such an animal. None of the hunters had ever seen anything that compared to the size of this animal. The magnificence of the animal stunned Chayton. He took a step forward and his moccasin disappeared into the smelly mire of the boggy meadow. The other hunters crouched down
behind anything they could find while gazing up at the humongous animal in front of them.

“This is the animal Tarca Sapa spoke about,” Keya whispered to Chayton.

“Ai, – Yes,” Chayton murmured, never taking his eyes off the beast.

Crouching low to the ground, Chayton waited for another wind gust and synchronizing his movement with it, he took a step forward. The other hunters moved when he moved, their moccasins sinking in the organic rich mud. Behind a stand of willow bushes, Chayton craned his neck upward...

Above is a short outtake from my new prehistoric thriller Ghosts of the Heart. In this particular scene, a prehistoric hunting party discovered a large animal that none of the hunters had ever seen before. The hunters had all heard the campfire stories and legends about this animal, but meeting one face-to-face was a lot more intimidating than any of the hunters had expected.   

When I wrote Ghosts of the Heart, I took some liberty with what we currently know about the prehistory of North America. My only defense to this liberty is in the name of fiction. I am sure that some readers may criticize me for doing this, but here is what I did and a tiny bit of justification. In Ghosts of the Heart, I added an extinct Pleistocene animal that may not have still existed at the time this adventure took place. The remains of this extinct animal have not yet been found with associated artifacts from the time of the Folsom People. That is not to say that this evidence won't turn up sometime in the future, but as of right now, the evidence is not there. Let's look at this closer in the next few paragraphs.   

At archaeological sites, investigators do everything possible to determine the dates of the site occupation  and for any human or animals that they may have found. How likely is it that any given investigator finds the last member of an extinct animal species in their archaeological site? For that matter, how likely is it that they have found one of the last ten or twenty members of an extinct animal species? Not likely and here is why.

First of all, the conditions have to be just right for any animal to be preserved in the fossil record. Most prehistoric human or animal remains have simply decayed away, not leaving any evidence of their existence in the fossil record. Now, let's say, the animal actually becomes fossilized. How likely is it that someone actual discovers the fossil remains where it has been buried? Not very likely is my answer. Finding the remains of an extinct animal is about as random as throwing darts at a map of North America and hoping that your dart hits a possible location for a fossilized extinct animal. 

Now, let's assume that extinct animal remains somehow became fossilized and then by chance, were found by archaeological investigators. How likely is it that this particular fossilized animal is the last member of its extinct species?  My answer is not likely at all and secondly, how would the investigator ever know if it was one of the last members of that species?        

There is a very low probability of finding the fossilized remains for an extinct animal species and an even lower probability that the fossilized animal remains represent the last member of an extinct animal species. Now, we add another low probability that we find the fossilized animal remains associated with human artifacts. Even if we do,, how do we know if these fossilized animal remains were the last member of an extinct species? Perhaps, the species went on to live another thousands years, who knows? The archaeologist won't know if those fossilized animal remains were the last member of that extinct animal species. So, as far as using an extinct species in Ghosts of the Heart, who knows, maybe someday the archaeological evidence will back up the story.         

 You might be asking what extinct Pleistocene species did I use in Ghosts of the Heart? Well, for that answer, you are going to have to read Ghosts of the Heart.

Shadows on the Trail and Ghosts of the Heart by John Bradford Branney are available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and better booksellers around the globe. 

 

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Saber-Toothed Cat or Mtn. Lion? Pick Your Poison

Figure One - Eyes of a hunter! 

She lay on a ledge overlooking the dying pond. From her vantage point, igmuwatogla, the mountain lioness was watching the pond for prey. The water in the pond would soon dry up, and the drought had killed off most of the deer. The lioness was hungry. Her small round ears perked up when she heard a sound. She listened and heard something coming her way in the shadows of the trees. She heard footsteps walking through the crackling dry leaves. Her keen eyes focused on the direction of the sound, but before she ever spotted the prey, she recognized the odor. The scent of deer blood teased her quivering nostrils. Igmuwatogla raised her twitching nose. She heard the snap of a tree branch. Her ears shot forward, and the pupils of her eyes readjusted to the light where the sound came from. The aroma of blood testing her patience. Her shrunken stomach growled in anticipation of a meal. The lioness spotted movement in the trees below. She slunk down the slope of the canyon, listening and watching for the prey. Her instincts told her to set up an ambush and wait for her prey. Igmuwatogla picked up her pace. Millions of years of evolution had made the lioness the perfect predator

The passage in blue above came from the book SHADOWS on the TRAIL, the first book in the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy, a historical book series about Paleoindians 12,600 years ago. The book passage describes how a mountain lioness sizes up her next meal by using the extraordinary senses and instincts that millions of years of evolution had fine-tuned. Who is her next meal? Well, you will have to read SHADOWS on the TRAIL to find that out. If you like Prehistoric America, you won't be disappointed.  

Figure 2 - Smilodon fatalis or a Sabre-toothed

cat fights with a dire wolf over a mammoth carcass at the 

Rancho La Brea tar pits. The dire wolf is already

fatally stuck in the oozing tar. Photo

courtesy of www.50birds.com.

In one of my earlier blog articles titled Dire Wolves Versus Gray Wolves, I explored my decision-making for selecting gray wolves over dire wolves for costarring in my first book SHADOWS on the TRAIL. I used the same decision-making process to select my second predator for the book. My decision came down between the seemingly formidable and extinct saber-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis, or the amazing evolutionary survivor, the American mountain lion. Below is some of my criteria I used in making my selection. 

 

Figure 3 - The saber-toothed cat reached a
height of 39 inches at the shoulder and a body
length of 69 inches. Photo courtesy of
www.arisonaskiesmeteorites.com.

Based on fossil evidence, one of the great predators of North America for over one million years was Smilodon fatalis, or the saber-toothed cat. It survived near the top of the food chain from about 1.6 million years ago to around 10,000 years ago. Based on analysis from skeletons, the saber-toothed cat weighed between 350 to 620 lbs. and was about the same size as a modern-day African lion. Analysis shows it was built more like a bear than the African lion with heavier forequarters and lighter hindquarters than an African Lion. Based on bone structure, the saber-toothed cat was not as fleet of foot as the African lion. Furthermore, DNA studies have confirmed that the saber-toothed cat is not related to any living feline species. 

Figure 4 - The fictional caveman cartoon The Flintstones
featured a saber-toothed cat named Baby Puss.  

The most distinguishing characteristic of the saber-toothed cat was its large serrated canine teeth which could reach a length of seven or eight inches. Although the teeth were ominous-looking, they were fragile and could not bite through bone. Mechanical analyses have shown that the narrow jaws of the saber-toothed cat only had about one-third to one-half of the biting power of an African lion.

Since saber-toothed cats are extinct so we must interpret their habits and lifestyle from fossil remains. The best place to do the interpretation is at the "gooey graveyard" at the Rancho La Brea tar pits in southern California where over two thousand well-preserved saber-toothed cat skeletons have been recovered and analyzed. Only the dire wolf has a greater concentration of skeletal material at the Rancho La Brea tar pits.

Figure 5 - Size comparison between a human and the saber-toothed cat 

that weighed as much as three to four men. Photo courtesy of

www.unclemacsgardenshed.blogspot.com.

Based on the number of skeletons at the tar pits, scientists believe that saber-toothed cats were ambush predators that preyed on large, slow-moving herbivores such as bison, camels, ground sloths, horses, and mastodons. Its bone structure indicates that it was not suited for preying on quicker, smaller animals. It most likely inhabited forest or heavy brush environments where the cover provided an opportunity for ambushing its prey. The large sample of saber-toothed cat bone material recovered in the tar pits indicates that the animals were scavenging other trapped animals there. Scientists, analyzing the tar pit specimens, found a large number of broken teeth and fractured bones in saber-toothed cat skeletons, and concluded that the trauma causing the injuries came from preying on much larger prey animals. 

The bottom line is that the saber-toothed cat was unable to adapt to a new environment and went extinct with many of the large mammal species that it preyed upon...

What about the American mountain lion? 

Figure 6 - The American Mountain Lion 

The American mountain lion, also known as a cougar, puma, panther, or catamount; is a highly efficient stalk-and-ambush predator. The mountain lion's name is a misnomer since its habitat is quite diverse and not limited to mountains. They are found on the desert and plains, as well as the foothills and mountains. The American mountain lion has the widest habitat range of any large terrestrial mammal in the western hemisphere, spanning from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes of South America! It is the second heaviest cat in the western hemisphere, behind the jaguar. Adult lions stand 24 to 35 inches at the shoulders and from head to tail range from 4.9 to 9 feet. Adult males weigh between 115 to 220 lbs.                

The mountain lion is a solitary, nocturnal animal that pursues a wide range of prey from insects up to ungulates weighing over 1000 lbs. The mountain lion's lean and wiry physique gives it great leaping and short-sprint capabilities. The mountain lion can leap vertically eighteen feet in one bound and jump horizontally forty to forty-five feet. The mountain lion's top speed is between forty and fifty miles per hour. Evolution created this near-perfect predator. 

                      

Figure 7 - Photo courtesy of www.fineartamerica.com  

In addition to its physical strength and performance, the mountain lion has extraordinary senses.  The mountain lion uses its finely tuned sense of smell to locate prey within an area. Once the prey is located, the mountain lion moves its small rounded ears together or independently to isolate the direction of the sound. The mountain lion can open its eye pupils three times wider than a human, letting in much more light for nocturnal conditions. Mountain lions demonstrate a heightened sensitivity to movement and many biologists believe that movement triggers an attack. This theory answers the question as to why most of its natural prey freezes in the presence of a mountain lion. The prey is trying to prevent an attack.

By now you can pretty much guess which predator I picked for SHADOWS on the TRAIL. That does not mean you won't see a saber-toothed cat in my other books. Check out my books and see how I handled the storyline! LINK BELOW! 

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