From the icy Arctic wastes of Alaska to the tropical swamps of Florida, North America is home to an amazingly rich diversity of wildlife. Yet when humans first entered the continent at the end of the last Ice Age, probably around 13,000 years ago, they would have encountered many other fascinating and bizarre creatures, such as ground sloths and glyptodonts, mammoths and mastodons.
When you add to this list camels and horses, sabre- and scimitar-toothed cats, dire wolves, lions and cheetahs, it is no wonder that Ice-Age North America has been described as an American Serengeti, teeming with a variety of large mammals that rivals the East African plains of today.
'Wild New World' takes us on a captivating journey back in time to follow in the footsteps of those first Americans. Moving across this vast continent region by region, present-day animals are studied for insights into older, now extinct beasts. A wealth of fossil evidence on the continents' prehistoric wildlife provides intriguing clues to the past.
With modern computer techniques it is now possible to flesh out these ancient bones, put fur on them and bring them back to life. A series of stunning computer-generated panoramas creates a vivid picture of what this ancient landscape was like, which animals were present and how they lived and died.
The final chapter, Mammoths to Manhattan, brings the story up to the present day, investigating the reasons for the extinction of the giant beasts and highlighting the animal winners and losers following the arrival of humans.
Lavishly illustrated with real animals of the present and computer-generated creatures of the past, 'Wild New World' is a ground-breaking new kind of natural-history book.
