LIFE IN THE FREEZER

Life in the Freezer, acrylic on canvas, 2022. 20" X 16" 

The Pleistocene epoch (2.5 million to 11,700 years ago) was marked by at least four ice ages, during which ice sheets spread from north to south, covering much of the northern Hemisphere including Europe, northern Asia and North America. For most animals, the conditions were inhospitable for life, but several large and spectacular animals have evolved adaptations such as thick fur and thick layers of fat to specially suit to the freezing cold conditions of the Pleistocene ice ages. The painting depicts a scene in a tundra landscape in Siberia.

Undoubtedly the most famous ice age animal is the woolly mammoth. A distant cousin to the Asian elephant, it weighed six tons and was as tall as the modern-day African elephant. The curved tusks of a woolly mammoth can measure up to 5 meters (16.5 feet) long. It had two layers of fur, where the length of each hair in its winter coat can grow up to a meter long. The fur layers help the animal keep warm efficiently, with the outer layer protecting it against bitter winds while the inner layer retains heat on its body. Many excellently-preserved woolly mammoth remains have been discovered in the permanently-frozen ground of Siberia.

Saber-toothed cats also prowled the Siberian tundra during the ice age. These cats may have used the Bering land bridge (Beringia) to migrate from the Americas during the interglacial periods, which are warmer periods between ice ages. The most common saber-toothed cat species found in Eurasia during the ice age were Machairodus and Homotherium. The group is known for their long canines, which were developed to target the soft parts of their prey.

Megaloceros, also known as the Irish elk, was the largest species of deer. It lived throughout northern Eurasia from the British Isles to the easternmost reaches of Siberia. Male Megaloceros had the largest antlers ever to grow on a deer, each antler being as long as an adult person is tall. 

Elasmotherium is a huge member of the rhinoceros family which grew to the size of a modern elephant. Its single horn alone measured a massive 2 meters (6 feet) long. There are five species of Elasmotherium, with a distribution ranging from Europe to the Caucasus and Siberia during the ice age.

Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) are members of the dog family which can grow to a size 20% bigger than the largest subspecies of grey wolf (the Yukon wolf of Canada). They are in fact not closely related to wolves but are part of an ancient lineage close to the African jackals. They may also have used the Bering land bridge to migrate to Eurasia. In 2019, a 40,000 year-old preserved dire wolf head was unearthed in Siberia, confirming the species' presence there.

Artist's notes

The artist has a fondness for the genre of paleoart, which is a genre which depicts prehistoric animals in their natural habitat according to scientific evidence. The artist also brings over the unity themes from most of his other artworks to build a scenery which gathers several species from the same time and place.