Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life · Unit 11
After the Dinosaurs: Ice Age Giants
Mammoths, sabre-tooths and the world of the ice ages
The removal of the non-avian dinosaurs opened ecological space that mammals filled within a few million years, and the result was a world of large mammals that has only just ended.
The unit covers the rise of mammals, the ice ages, mammoths and mastodons, sabre-toothed predators, and the megafaunal extinctions that closed the period.
This unit breaks down into 18 short steps and 110 questions, starting at difficulty 2 and building to 4. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.
- Steps
- 18
- Questions
- 110
- Difficulty
- 2-4
What this unit covers
- Mammoths and Mastodons
- The Ice Ages
- The Rise of Mammals
- Sabre-Toothed Predators
- The End of the Megafauna
Where this fits
Follows The Great Extinction. Connects to History's Prehistory and Early Humans.
Where people slip
Mammoths were alive when the pyramids were built. A small population survived on Wrangel Island until around four thousand years ago.
How the unit is structured
After the Dinosaurs: Ice Age Giants runs as 18 short steps that unlock in order. 13 are practice rounds and 5 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 2 and climb to 4 as you progress.
Challenge rounds
Example questions
30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 110 in the unit altogether.
Mammoths and Mastodons
- Fill the blankLevel 2
1. Frozen ground that stays icy all year is called ____.
- permafrostcorrect
- peat
- pumice
- plaster
Permafrost preserves ice age remains remarkably well.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
2. What was a woolly mammoth?
- A hairy relative of elephantscorrect
- A kind of dinosaur
- A giant sloth
- A sea reptile
It was an elephant relative covered in thick hair, adapted to cold ice age landscapes.
- Picture questionLevel 2
3. 🐘 Which ice age giant does this picture suggest?
- The woolly mammothcorrect
- Tyrannosaurus
- A giant sloth
- A sabre-toothed cat
The mammoth was a hairy elephant relative of the ice ages.
- Fact or fibLevel 3
4. Mammoths were still alive when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.
Answer: True
True. The Wrangel Island population outlasted the Great Pyramid's construction.
- Guess the numberLevel 3
5. Roughly how many thousands of years ago did the last mammoths die out?
Answer: 4 thousand years
The Wrangel Island population survived until about four thousand years ago.
- Choose all that applyLevel 4
6. Which questions does mammoth de-extinction raise? Pick all that apply.
- Welfare of engineered animalscorrect
- Whether a suitable habitat still existscorrect
- Whether funding should go to living speciescorrect
- Whether mammoths would speak
Animal welfare, ecological fit and use of conservation funding are all debated.
Sabre-Toothed Predators
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
7. Which predators lived during the ice ages? Pick all that apply.
- Sabre-toothed catscorrect
- Cave lionscorrect
- Dire wolvescorrect
- Velociraptors
Sabre-toothed cats, cave lions and dire wolves all hunted in that world.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
8. Smilodon had very powerful front legs for holding down prey.
Answer: True
True. Its build suggests grappling rather than long chases.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
9. Was the sabre-toothed cat a tiger?
- No, it was a different branch of the cat family
- Yes, it was a striped tiger
- It was a large dog
- It was a bear
No. Smilodon belonged to a separate branch of the cat family, not the tiger line.
- True or falseLevel 2
10. Cave bears and cave lions lived in ice age Europe.
Answer: True
True, and both appear in prehistoric cave art.
- Type the answerLevel 2
11. Which sabre-toothed cat is famous from the tar pits of Los Angeles?
Answer: Smilodon
Smilodon is the best known sabre-toothed predator.
- Sort into groupsLevel 4
12. Sort each animal by the continent it is best known from.
Answer: Smilodon = The Americas; Giant ground sloth = The Americas; Cave lion = Eurasia; Woolly rhinoceros = Eurasia
Different continents held their own ice age faunas.
The End of the Megafauna
- Build the sentenceLevel 2
13. Build a sentence about the ice age giants.
Answer: Mammoths lived long after the dinosaurs
Mammoths lived long after the dinosaurs.
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
14. Which animals were part of the ice age megafauna? Pick all that apply.
- Woolly rhinoceroscorrect
- Giant ground slothcorrect
- Giant deer with huge antlerscorrect
- Stegosaurus
Woolly rhinos, giant sloths and giant deer all counted.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
15. What does megafauna mean?
- Very large animalscorrect
- Very small insects
- Sea plants
- Fossil rocks
It means the very large animals of a region or time.
- Sort into groupsLevel 2
16. Sort each animal by whether it lived with dinosaurs or in the ice ages.
Answer: Triceratops = With dinosaurs; Pteranodon = With dinosaurs; Woolly mammoth = Ice ages; Sabre-toothed cat = Ice ages
Tens of millions of years separate the two worlds.
- Fact or fibLevel 3
17. Some scientists discuss reviving mammoth traits in elephants using genetic techniques.
Answer: True
True, and the idea raises serious ethical and ecological questions.
- Put in orderLevel 3
18. Put these events in order.
Answer: Ice age cycles begin -> Humans spread across continents -> Megafauna decline sharply -> Farming societies appear
Ice ages, then human expansion, then megafauna losses, then farming.
The Ice Ages
- Fact or fibLevel 2
19. Early humans lived alongside mammoths and painted them on cave walls.
Answer: True
True. Cave art shows mammoths, lions and rhinos in remarkable detail.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
20. The cold period we call the ice ages belongs to the ____ epoch.
- Pleistocenecorrect
- Jurassic
- Cambrian
- Permian
The Pleistocene ran from about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
21. What happened to sea level during the coldest ice age times?
- It fell dramaticallycorrect
- It rose sharply
- It stayed the same
- The oceans dried out completely
So much water was locked in ice that sea level fell by over a hundred metres.
- True or falseLevel 2
22. Lower sea levels created land bridges that animals and people could cross.
Answer: True
True. Beringia connected Asia and North America.
- Type the answerLevel 2
23. What is the name of the land bridge that once joined Asia and North America?
Answer: Beringia
Beringia appeared when sea levels dropped.
- Choose all that applyLevel 3
24. Which changes accompanied the last glacial maximum? Pick all that apply.
- Much lower sea levelcorrect
- Vast northern ice sheetscorrect
- Drier and dustier climatescorrect
- Tropical forests covering Europe
Lower sea level, expanded ice sheets and drier, dustier conditions all occurred.
The Rise of Mammals
- Choose all that applyLevel 2
25. Which are features of mammals? Pick all that apply.
- Hair or furcorrect
- Feeding young on milkcorrect
- Warm-blooded bodiescorrect
- Laying hard-shelled eggs in every case
Hair, milk and warm blood are all mammal features.
- Fact or fibLevel 2
26. Grasslands spread widely long after the dinosaurs, changing the animals that lived on them.
Answer: True
True. Grazing animals such as horses evolved with the grass.
- Fill the blankLevel 2
27. Mammals feed their young with ____.
- milkcorrect
- seeds
- insects only
- water only
Milk is one of the defining features of mammals.
- Multiple choiceLevel 2
28. What happened to mammals after the dinosaurs died out?
- They spread out and grew much biggercorrect
- They died out too
- They stayed exactly the same
- They became reptiles
With the big dinosaurs gone, mammals spread and grew into many new forms.
- True or falseLevel 2
29. Whales evolved from land mammals that returned to the sea.
Answer: True
True. Their ancestors walked on land before adapting to water.
- Type the answerLevel 2
30. Which era, following the Mesozoic, is often called the Age of Mammals?
Answer: Cenozoic
The Cenozoic Era continues today.
Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.
How you practise
This unit mixes 11 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.
- Build the sentence
- Choose all that apply
- Fact or fib
- Fill the blank
- Guess the number
- Multiple choice
- Picture question
- Put in order
- Sort into groups
- True or false
- Type the answer
Practise After the Dinosaurs: Ice Age Giants
110 questions across 18 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.
Play this unitRead about After the Dinosaurs: Ice Age Giants
Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.
More units in Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Life
- What Is a Dinosaur?What dinosaurs were, when they lived and how we name them
- Famous DinosaursTyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and the other stars
- Meat Eaters and Plant EatersTeeth, claws, defences and what dinosaurs ate
- Fossils and Fossil HuntingWhat fossils are, how they form and how they are found
- The Age of DinosaursTriassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous, and how deep time works
- Eggs, Nests and Growing UpDinosaur eggs, nests, babies and family life
- Flying and Swimming ReptilesPterosaurs, plesiosaurs and the sea monsters that were not dinosaurs
- The Great ExtinctionThe asteroid, the volcanoes and who survived