Elephants- Mammoths and Mastodons
Its hard to imagine today, but Ice Age Elephants once roamed the Chicago area. Learn more about the Mammoths and Mastodons that lived here and what we can learn by studying the remains of these Ice Aged Giants!
Caribou, Stag Moose, and ?
What other animals once lived here and may have been on the dinner menu? Some species such as Caribou still survive today while others have disappeared? What does this tell us about climate change, adaptation, and how both people and animals adapted at the end of the last ice age?
Giant Beaver and other odd critters
Cook County was once home to a wide arrange of unusual and spectacular creatures. Join us as we explore the Ice Age beastiary that once roamed the Chicago region!
Bamford Farm Bog. Elephants, Stag Moose, and other extinct critters in Kendall County, IL.
“While deepening an old well, he came upon buffalo bones about 5 feet below the surface. As he went down, he struck elephant bones from 7 to 12 feet deep. There are a number of deer horns found associated with them in the lower levels. The soil was very soft and the animals had evidently mired there. No care was taken in excavating. Many of the bones were broken or lost and teeth carried away for souvenirs. The excavation was not over 10 feet square and 12 feet deep; and there were evidently many bones left. These bones were piled in Bamford’s barn and were then moved to an adjoining farm when Bamford moved and Thos. Kittleson took possession of the old farm. The bones lay in Bamford’s cellar for years until June 1911 when I heard of them and with Mrs. Bamford’s permission brought them in three automobile loads to my office in Joliet” – George Lankford Sr. 1912.
“A Pleistocene Bog Deposit and its Fossil Fauna” Elmer S. Riggs 1936
The Mastodons of Aurora: Phillips Park
Monsters of the Midway- plotnick.medium.com