Megafauna List

Extant

The Mountain Ghost — Tragelaphus buxtoni, the mountain nyala, is Ethiopia’s elusive spiral-horned antelope, a highland specialist that endures in mist-shrouded forests at the very roof of Africa.

Domesticated

The High-Altitude Workhorse of the Himalayas, the Yak is a thick-furred bovine built for survival in the world’s coldest mountain plateaus. Once both a wild prey species and a key domesticate of early Tibetan peoples, it has carried loads, provided food, and sustained human life at extreme altitudes for millennia.

Globally Extinct

The Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo — Procoptodon rapha was one of the largest kangaroos to ever hop across the Australian Pleistocene plains. This upright, leaf-eating giant stood taller than a man, its flat face and forward-facing eyes giving it an almost human look of quiet curiosity.

Extant

The Roan Antelope — Hippotragus equinus is one of Africa’s most striking and powerful antelopes, known for its robust build, backward-sweeping horns, and bold facial markings. Found in savannas and lightly wooded grasslands, this species embodies the strength and endurance of the African plains.

Globally Extinct

The Cave Sloth of El Salvador, Meizonyx salvadorensis, was a powerful ground sloth that roamed Central America’s upland forests and limestone caves during the Late Pleistocene.

Extant

The unicorn of the sea, the Narwhal is a medium-sized Arctic whale known for its long, spiral tusk, which is actually an elongated tooth. Narwhals were hunted by Paleo-Inuit cultures for their meat and ivory and remain important in Indigenous Arctic subsistence.

Domesticated 6,000 years ago

The Living Tractor of the East, the Water Buffalo is a massive, marsh-loving bovine whose strength and adaptability have shaped Asian agriculture for millennia. Once hunted in the wild wetlands of South and Southeast Asia, it later became one of humanity’s most valuable domesticated animals.

No

A semiaquatic antelope of the Upper Nile wetlands, the Nile Lechwe blends grace, endurance, and adaptation to flooded grasslands.

Globally Extinct

Rondônia tapir – Tapirus rondoniensis – Extinct Pleistocene tapir from the Brazilian Amazon, similar in build to the living South American tapir.

Globally Extinct

The Giant Wildebeest — Megalotragus priscus was a massive, now-extinct antelope of the African Pleistocene, closely related to modern wildebeests. Towering and heavily built, it grazed the vast grasslands of eastern and southern Africa, where it coexisted with early humans and other Ice Age megafauna.

Globally Extinct

The Giant Pleistocene Pig — Kolpochoerus majus was a massive suid that roamed the grasslands and woodlands of Africa during the Pleistocene. Much larger than modern warthogs, it possessed robust jaws and formidable tusks, making it a formidable presence among the prehistoric megafauna.

Extant

The Mighty Wild Water Buffalo — Lord of the Asian Wetlands and Ancestor of Domestication
Towering and formidable, Bubalus arnee once roamed freely across the vast floodplains and forests of South and Southeast Asia. Revered and feared, it stands as both a symbol of primal wilderness and the genetic foundation of humanity’s most important domestic buffalo breeds.

Extant

The Plains Zebra, Equus quagga, is Africa’s most widespread wild equid — a symbol of the continent’s open savannas. Its bold black-and-white stripes serve as camouflage against predators and parasites, while its strong social bonds and migratory behavior define the rhythm of the African plains.

Globally Extinct

The Long-Faced South American Camel — Xenorhinotherium bahiense, an elegant yet powerful herbivore of the Late Pleistocene, was Brazil’s answer to the giraffe and the camel rolled into one: long-legged, high-skulled, and perfectly built for ancient dry savannas.

Globally Extinct

Hemiauchenia macrocephala, the North American Camel, was a long-limbed, tall-headed herbivore that roamed the open plains and woodlands of Pleistocene North America. Elegant yet robust, it was a close relative of modern llamas, adapted to the cooler, drier climates that marked the Ice Age.

Globally Extinct

The Giant Llama of the Pampas — Palaeolama major, a long-limbed browser of the Pleistocene lowlands, was the stately South American counterpart to the camel, built for endurance, height, and sweeping grassland vistas.

Globally Extinct

Once towering over the forests of Madagascar, Aepyornis hildebranti was one of several species of “elephant birds” — the heaviest birds to have ever lived. Though flightless and herbivorous, their massive eggs may have drawn the attention of early human settlers.

Globally Extinct

The Straight-Tusked Giant — Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the towering elephant of the Pleistocene, was the grand monarch of Europe’s interglacial forests — a warm-temperate titan whose straight ivory tusks swept nearly four meters from tip to tip.

Regionally Extinct

The White Ghost of the Sahara, Oryx dammah, also known as the Scimitar-Horned Oryx, once roamed the great arid expanses of North Africa. Its sweeping, scimitar-shaped horns and pale coat made it a striking figure adapted to the blinding desert sun.

Extant

The King of the Highlands — Ovis ammon, the argali, is the loftiest of wild sheep, a muscular monarch of the Central Asian mountains whose sweeping horns carve arcs against the sky like frozen echoes of thunder

Globally Extinct

A giant, slow-moving island tortoise once widespread in the Bahamas, surviving until early human arrival.

No

Domesticated sheep — the wool-bearing ruminant that transformed human economies from foraging to farming.

Globally Extinct

The Broad-Faced Giant Kangaroo — Simosthenurus maddocki was a heavily built, browsing kangaroo that once roamed the Pleistocene woodlands of Australia. Its deep skull and shortened snout gave it a powerful bite for processing tough, fibrous leaves and stems.

Globally Extinct

The Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo — Sthenurus stirlingi, a Pleistocene titan of Australia, was a thick-limbed browser that stood tall on its hind legs, surveying Ice Age scrublands like a muscular, plant-eating sentinel.

Globally Extinct

The Pygmy Mammoth — Mammuthus exilis was a remarkable example of island dwarfism, evolving from the massive Columbian mammoth into a much smaller form on the Channel Islands of California. Despite its reduced size, it retained all the iconic features of its giant ancestors — curved tusks, domed skull, and a woolly coat adapted to Ice Age climates.

Extant

The Grevy’s Zebra, Equus grevyi, is the largest and most endangered of all zebras, renowned for its narrow stripes, tall stature, and striking elegance. Native to the arid grasslands of Kenya and Ethiopia, it represents the last survivor of an ancient lineage of wild equids adapted to dry savanna ecosystems.

Globally Extinct

The Wild Ancestor of Cattle, Bos primigenius (the Aurochs), was a towering bovid that once roamed across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Revered and feared by early humans, it was one of the largest wild cattle species ever and became the direct ancestor of all domestic cattle. Its power and size made it a frequent subject of Paleolithic cave art and Neolithic ritual.

Globally Extinct

The Giant of New Zealand’s Lost Forests — Dinornis robustus, the South Island Giant Moa, once towered as one of the tallest birds to ever walk the Earth. These colossal flightless herbivores roamed the forests and shrublands of New Zealand’s South Island, browsing on leaves, twigs, and fruits.

Extant

The Mountain Zebra, Equus zebra, is a sure-footed grazer adapted to the rocky plateaus and arid highlands of southern Africa. Distinguished by its bold stripe pattern and lack of a belly stripe, it thrives in terrain too harsh for other equids, embodying resilience in one of Africa’s most challenging environments.

Globally Extinct

Towering at over 3 meters tall and laying the largest eggs ever known, Aepyornis maximus — the "Giant Elephant Bird" — reigned as the heaviest bird to ever walk the Earth. Native to Madagascar, it was a silent victim of human arrival and ecological change.

Globally Extinct

A North‑American giant that bridged moose and deer. With a body the size of a modern moose and antlers shaped like a huge deer’s, the stag‑moose thrived in North America’s spruce parklands before humans arrived.

Extant

The Forest Giant — The African Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) is the smaller, more elusive cousin of the Bush Elephant, inhabiting the dense rainforests of Central and West Africa. Once widespread, its populations have been severely reduced by ivory poaching and habitat destruction.

Globally Extinct

Genyornis newtoni, the Thunder Bird of Pleistocene Australia, was a massive, flightless bird that towered over the ancient grasslands and saltbush plains. Weighing as much as a small cow, it was among the last of the great “mihirungs,” the giant birds that once dominated Australia before humans arrived.

Globally Extinct

Glyptotherium floridanum, the Florida Glyptodont, was a heavily armored herbivore that roamed the warm savannas and wetlands of Pleistocene North America. It was the eastern cousin of the more widespread Glyptotherium cylindricum, a creature built like a prehistoric tank with a domed shell of bone and a lumbering gait suited to open landscapes.

Globally Extinct

Haringtonhippus francisci, the North American Stilt-Legged Horse, was a sleek and long-limbed equid that roamed Ice Age grasslands from Alaska to Texas. Its gracile build made it the fleet-footed cousin among Pleistocene horses — a specialist for open plains and speed.

Globally Extinct

The Shasta Ground Sloth — Nothrotheriops shastensis, a solitary browser of Ice Age deserts and woodlands, was one of North America’s last surviving giant ground sloths — a slow, shaggy vegetarian that vanished with the close of the Pleistocene.

Globally Extinct

The Andean Camel of the Ice Age, Palaeolama weddelli, was a tall, long-necked relative of the modern llama and alpaca that roamed South America’s highlands and open plains during the late Pleistocene. Known for its graceful stance and cold-climate adaptations, it bridged the lineage between extinct North American camels and modern South American camelids.

Globally Extinct

The Ural Steppe Horse — Equus (ferus) uralensis, a cold-adapted wild horse of the late Pleistocene plains of Eurasia, grazed the grassy steppes that stretched from the Ural Mountains to western Siberia. It was a compact, muscular equid that thrived in Ice Age ecosystems dominated by mammoths and bison.

Globally Extinct

Dinornis novaezealandiae was a giant, flightless bird (a moa) endemic to New Zealand’s North Island. It belonged to the order Dinornithiformes (moas), and was among the tallest birds ever known. Males typically weighed between about 55 and 88 kg, while females could range from about 78 to 249 kg — a dramatic sexual dimorphism where females were often much larger.

Globally Extinct

The Dwarf Proboscidean of Flores, Stegodon florensis, adapted to island life and possibly hunted by early hominins on the Indonesian island of Flores.

Extant

Britain’s majestic stag and Europe’s native cervid. Red deer are the largest wild land mammals in the British Isles and have thrived across Eurasia since the mid‑Pleistocene.

Globally Extinct

The Tropical Giant — Mixotoxodon larensis, the Great South American Toxodont

Globally Extinct

The Great Marsh Grazer of the Pleistocene Pampas, Toxodon platensis was one of the largest native herbivores of prehistoric South America — a creature with the body of a rhinoceros, the face of a hippopotamus, and teeth like a giant rodent’s.

Globally Extinct

The European Water Buffalo of the Interglacials, Bubalus murrensis — a thermophilic bovine that grazed swampy river valleys across Pleistocene Europe.

Globally Extinct

The Great Claw of the Underworld — Nohochichak xibalbahkah, a massive ground sloth from the late Pleistocene Yucatán Peninsula, whose fossilized remains were discovered deep in the flooded caves of Hoyo Negro. Its name, drawn from the Mayan language, evokes the spirit world: Nohochichak meaning “great claw,” and Xibalbahkah meaning “dweller of the underworld.”

Globally Extinct

The Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo — Procoptodon goliath, the largest kangaroo ever to exist, was an Ice Age browser that stood as tall as a man and hopped through the dry heart of Pleistocene Australia on single-toed feet like a muscular bipedal shadow.

Globally Extinct

The Giant Ground Sloth — Lestodon armatus was one of the largest members of the ground sloths, a colossal herbivore that roamed South America during the Pleistocene. Despite its size and slow gait, it was a powerful browser capable of pulling down trees and stripping vegetation with its massive claws.

Globally Extinct

The Siberian Steppe Horse — Equus (ferus) lenensis, a rugged Ice Age horse adapted to the cold, open tundra of northern Asia, once thundered across the mammoth steppe alongside woolly mammoths and cave lions. With its compact body and dense coat, it endured the harsh climates of Late Pleistocene Siberia.

Extant

The Great Grazer of Africa — Ceratotherium simum, the White Rhinoceros, is the largest living species of rhinoceros and one of the largest land mammals on Earth. Known for its broad, square mouth and social nature, this species thrives on open grasslands and savannas.

Regionally Extinct

The Asiatic Wild Ass, Equus hemionus, is a swift, desert-dwelling equid built for survival in some of the harshest environments on Earth. Once roaming from the Arabian Peninsula to northern China, it remains one of the few truly wild horse species still existing today.