The Pleistocene Epoch lasted about 1.8 million years (Gradstein and Ogg 1999 [and many other sources]); but proboscideans are known in Michigan for only about the last 24,000 years of the Pleistocene. These occurrences are in the form of a single mammoth record (24,000 B.P. [years before the present], Kapp 1970, this paper) and a very large number of mastodon and mammoth records (Abraczinskas 1993, here) that range from about 12,000 to 10,000 B.P. (Holman, Fisher, and Kapp 1986; Holman 2001, here). Thus, it is certain that for at least the last 2,000 years of the Ice Age, Michigan was the site of megaherbivore-dominated communities, the megaherbivores (huge plant eating vertebrates) being the mastodonts and mammoths. Megaherbivore Communities in Michigan. Today, megaherbivores that weigh more than 2,000 pounds are the most important animals in the game preserves of Africa as they are essential to the stability of the entire community. In these game preserves, the feeding activities of elephants and rhinos change wooded savanna to open, shortgrass situations, which are dominated by rapidly reproducing plants that provide for other herbivores in the community. Without megaherbivores, a scrub land emerges that is unable to support nearly the number of mammalian species supported by the shortgrass habitat. It has been demonstrated in recent years that the elimination of the elephants and rhinos leads to massive environmental changes and the elimination of the entire community.
