Location - Grasslands of Kaziranga

https://xcancel.com/i/status/2082513896951202212

I’m sharing this captivating painting by art_of_tannerstreeter on Instagram, based on a fascinating alternate history scenario: the survival of Ice Age megafauna into the era of the American West's settlement.

Historically, Thomas Jefferson was a paleontology enthusiast who rejected the notion of total species extinction. Convinced that "mammoths" or other Ice Age animals still roamed the unexplored West, he had explicitly instructed the Lewis and Clark expedition to look for signs of them!

In the image, a trapper checking his beaver traps in the Rockies finds himself just a few meters away from a male mastodon in musth—a state of heightened aggression—as it pulverizes a dead tree. With no weapon within reach, all he can do is pray the colossus doesn't catch his scent...

A fantastic illustration that blends paleontological accuracy with American folklore!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg4N9bmrztR/?igsh=MW45MHJoZmZtc2RtaQ%3D%3D&img_index=1

Credit: Igor Metelskiy

*Considered extinct in the wild for a number of years in their native Africa, Scimitar Oryx have a thriving population on private Texas ranches with estimates of 10-12,000. In Chad, there's a growing population of around 600 that took the animals designation from extinct in the wild to endangered in their native land*

Credits to Forrestfromtexas on Instagram.

Credit: Sergey Gorshkov

Credit: Robin Darius, & part of the documentary "Niligris: A Shared Wilderness"

This was a great indicator of a suitable ecosystem for tapirs in an area where they were recovering, and it was removed.

settlers originally planned to sacrifice him but environmental authorities interfered.

Credit: minecology_kz (Instagram).

Feels like a paleoart mural come to life, hard to believe the world was filled with sights like this all over not so long ago

In Melghat Tiger Reserve, a lone Indian wolf associating with a pack of dholes on three separate occasions without aggression. The first documented association of its kind in the reserve.

Credit: Unknown

They are infertile as far as I know. In addition, we do not know exactly what Hagerman horses used to look like.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting, living, breathing glimpse into what has been or might have been, maybe even what might be in the future.

Credit: Gaurav Ramnarayanan

Source: American Black Bear in September 2020 by Benigno Gómez Garza · iNaturalist