What are Some Extinct Animals of Europe?
During most of the Pleistocene (1.8 million to 10,000 years ago), Europe had many unusual extinct animals, some of which are difficult to imagine today. Since the last Ice Age began about 2.58 million years ago, Eurasia and North America have undergone cycles of glaciation and corresponding interglacials, where continental glaciers covered much of the planet north of 50 degrees latitude, then receded to the far north. As a result, many of the extinct European faunas were adapted to the cold. These extinct animals often changed their characteristics during the glacial and interglacial periods: for instance, the cave bear had a tendency to be larger during glacials and smaller during interglacials. Some of the distinctive Ice Age and interglacial extinct animals that existed in Europe were the European Hippopotamus (larger than present-day hippos), the cave bear (larger than the Brown Bear but thankfully vegetarian), the Giant Unicorn (Elasmotherium, a fast-running 20 ft-long giant rhino
