If Yellowstone National Park is dangerous now, it’s a cakewalk compared to the prehistoric Pleistocene age.

Imagine a volatile thermal supervolcano simmering underfoot as mammoths, mastodons, short-faced bears, dire wolves, saber-toothed tigers and even early camels roamed the region, all competing to feed and not be food.

Lambert and Reed, both renowned researchers with advanced degrees, jointly delivered the presentation “Dire Wolves, Mammoths and Humans — Yellowstone in the Pleistocene” as part of Yellowstone Forever’s summer speaker series.

The presentation was partly prompted by the recent work of Colossal Biosciences, which aims to "de-extinct" dire wolves and wooly mammoths and possibly reintegrate them into the wild. 

With super-sized predators, multi-ton herbivores, extreme weather conditions — it’s a wonder humans survived at all. And yet, the people of the Pleistocene endured to become Yellowstone’s “hyper keystone predators.”