A group of Australopithecus mourn the loss of one of their members who has died from malaria. These ancestors of Homo sapiens are put to several tests, as they must avoid Deinotherium, a giant cousin of our modern elephants which reached three times the size of a modern elephant. Unlike better-known elephant relatives, Deinotherium did not have long tusks emerging from its upper jaw. Instead it had two fang-like spikes extending from its lower jaw, suggesting that maybe it used these tusks to stir up vegetation, or even for rooting about in the soil. The Australopithecines must also watch out for Dinofelis, a sabre-toothed cat with a taste for their flesh. Ancylotherium, one of the last Chalicotheres, pose no threat as they browse on leaves.
Next we find ourselves in an area later to be known as the Lujanian Formation in Argentina, one million years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch (1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago). The polar ice caps have continued to expand, leading to further cooling and drying of the planet. The grasses have continued to expand as well.
Phorusrhacos, one of the giant terror birds, is the top predator here. Like Diatryma and Gastornis, it is large enough to feed on a variety of mammalian prey. Phorusrhacos can't prey on Smilodon ("knife tooth"), the best known of the sabre-toothed cats. Nor can it tackle Doedicurus, a glyptodont with a particularly nasty smashing weapon on its tail. Megatherium, one of the giant land sloths, is much too big to attack as well. Smilodon likes to prey on a herd of Macrauchenia, a group of herbivores known as the litopterns that are known only from South America and are unrelated to any modern mammals.
We move now to Europe 30,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch; the earth is in the middle of an Ice Age. A cycle of ice ages has begun, and there have been 50 ice ages already by this time. The expansion of the polar ice caps has lead to sea levels that are much lower, and the polar regions are covered by ice that is up to one kilometer thick in areas. Present-day London and New York City are covered by ice.
