Remains of American camels

2002/10/14 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Biologia
• Zoologia

America has always been called a new world, but in the case of camelids Asia and Africa were the worlds to be discovered.

According to the most accepted hypothesis, the ancestors of today's camelids resided in North America 40 million years ago. Later, in the Pleistocene, the search for new territories moved to South America and Asia.

From the ancestors who arrived in South America the species of llama, guana, bikuña and alpaca were separated. Those who crossed the Bering Strait towards Asia reached Africa. The camel is Asian and the African dromedary.

However, the camelids living in North America disappeared and now their only witnesses are the fossils. The last fossil has been recently found in California.

A geologist looking for earthquake failures discovers the bones of a 100,000 year camel. Its discovery has occurred in the California city of Long Beach, in a parking pit.

Only five vertebrae of the vertebral column have been found, with no other bones of the body appearing. According to paleontologists who have studied the skeleton, other bones may have been dragged by some predator at the time.