For hundreds of millions of years, the abundance of large animals, megafauna, was an important feature of land and oceans. However, over the past tens of thousands of years – a blink of an eye across many evolutionary and biogeochemical timescales – something dramatic has happened to Earth's ecology; megafauna has largely disappeared from large areas, rendered either actually or functionally extinct. Only in small parts of the world do megafauna exist at levels of diversity close to their former state, and in many of these remaining regions they are in a state of functional decline due to the depletion of population and range contraction.
The last ice age reached its peak around 20,000 years ago. Glaciers covered large areas of North America, Europe, South America and Asia. The last ice age occurred during the Pleistocene Epoch, a geological period beginning 2.6 million years ago and ending 11,700 years ago. This era saw numerous glacial and interglacial periods. When the climate was cooler, glaciers advanced. When it got warmer, they retreated. During the last ice age, global temperatures were about 11 degrees Fahrenheit (or 6 degrees Celsius) colder than today. This last ice age began 115,000 years ago and ended 11,700 years ago.
With cooler temperatures and greater ice cover, there has been less precipitation and less precipitation. Snow and ice reflect more of the sun's rays, only adding to the cold. Additionally, sea levels were much lower, as much of the oceans were locked in as ice. This resulted in the creation of land bridges that were previously covered by the sea. These bridges allowed species to access islands from the mainland and even move between continents.
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