a golf course. An Osage tradition tells about a battle between mastodons and mammoths in the Great Plains region. This battle left many animals dead and after the battle was over the Osage burned the dead animals. Later, after the Osage were forceable moved to a reservation, white settlers found mastodon and mammoth bones at this site. Throughout western North America, there are many stories of large, black-winged birds, known as thunderbirds, which interacted with indigenous people in both positive and negative ways. These stories of thunderbirds share similarities with species from the genus Teratornis, which are found throughout fossil record of the west coast. South America About 10,000 years ago, the landscape of South America contained numerous species of megafauna, many of which have no modern species for comparison. South America was home to bears, saber-toothed cats, large capybaras and llamas. Additionally, there were huge terrestrial sloths, armored glyptodonts (similar to an armadillo, but the size of a hippo), and animals similar to camels and rhinos (macrauchenids and toxodonts). These animals went extinct during the Quaternary Period and all South American mammal species larger than 100 kg were lost. The explanation for their extinction has not been definitively answered, and is a topic of debate among scientists. Some suggest that human hunting may have been the dominant driver of megafaunal decline in South America. The continent of South America was isolated for millions of years during the Cenozoic Period, which had a significant impact on its wildlife. This isolation helped foster species that were not found anywhere else on Earth. Approximately 3 million years ago, the Great American Biotic Interchange occurred due to the Isthmus of Panama, which allowed for the mixing of North and South American faunas. The mixing of faunas created new opportunities for expansion, competition, and replacement of species. South American wildlife in the Pleistocene varied greatly; an example is the giant ground sloth, Megatherium. The continent also had quite a few grazers and mixed feeders such as the camel-like litoptern Macrauchenia, Cuvieronius, Notiomastodon, Doedicurus, Glyptodon, Hippidion and Toxodon. The main predators of the region were Arctotherium and Smilodon. Eurasia As with South America, some elements of the Eurasian megafauna were similar to those of North America. Among the most recognizable Eurasian species are the woolly mammoth, steppe mammoth, straight-tusked elephant, European hippopotamuses, aurochs, steppe bison, cave lion, cave bear, cave hyena, Homotherium, Irish elk, giant