Prehistoric Colorado Was Home to Giant Camels

Today, it’s hard to picture a time when dinosaurs and giant land animals roamed what is now present-day Colorado, but archaeological evidence proves that this was once the case.

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While some of these giant animals include things like mammoths, mastodons, and giant bison, the land that now makes up what we know as Colorado was also interestingly home to another species that isn’t as commonly known about called the camelops.

Prehistoric Colorado + the Giant Camels that Roamed the Earth

Today, three species of camels are present across the globe and are native to places like the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and Australia.

However, over 40 million years ago, an ancestor of the modern-day camel roamed the land that is present-day North America and Central America, and eventually evolved into the camelops, a giant camel that was present in what we now know as Colorado.

How Long Ago Were Camelops in Colorado?

The oldest fossils of the camelops were discovered in North America and date back an estimated three to four million years, and the species was named by Joseph Leidy in 1854 after a fossilized jawbone belonging to an ancient specimen was found in Kansas.

While the camelops became extinct in the late Pleistocene Epoch in an event that was responsible for the destruction of many of these giant animals that once walked the Earth, scientists believe that these giant camels were on the planet at the same time as humans and that these early humans even hunted and butchered them.

Camelops Roamed in Other States Besides Colorado

In addition to Colorado, scientists believe that camelops also lived in present-day California, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Texas, based on the discovery of fossils in each of these states.