Lovable creatures of ICE AGE

The recently refurbished Savoy Cinema is running at ‘House Full’ these days, all eager to watch Ice Age- 4; a 3 d movie. After being  disappointed at having to turn back for lack of seats, ZooLander too viewed Ice Age and this week reports about the characters in it...   An ice age, or more precisely, a glacial age, is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the earth’s surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of ice sheets in the world. The animals had to migrate, to escape the freezing climate -theme of the Ice Age series. The background to Ice Age- 2 was - the Melt Down and the third covered the Era of Dinosaurs. The ‘Continental Drift’ is the theme of the current movie Ice Age -4, which is being screened around the world and attracting large crowds at packed cinemas.  Perhaps, you have already watched the Ice Age movie. But have you given thought to the kind of animals that are featured in the film? Yes, all these popular characters were based on real animals - mostly fossilized from that Ice age. Browsing through Wikipedia and other websites, Zoolander compiled the natural history of these animals. Manny the Wooly Mammoth Manfred or Manny is a woolly mammoth and is the most important character of all, in all four Ice Age movies. He can be serious and emotional, but is otherwise caring and friendly. In the first film, while passing through the icy cavern, the herd discovers cave paintings of mammoths which were killed by Paleo-Indian hunters; this is an emotional moment for Manny, indicating that the pictures could be 0f him. This shows us his history  and also indicates that something similar may have happened. Manny finds love with Ellie in Ice Age: The Meltdown. In Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, he has a daughter named Peaches. In Ice Age: Continental Drift, he gets into an argument with his teenage daughter before being pulled away by the drift with Diego, Sid and Granny. Woolly Mammoth is a species of Mammoth elephants. They are commonly found in fossilized records and are scientifically identified as Mammuthus primigenius, also known as the tundra mammoth. This animal is known from its bones and frozen carcasses found in north America and northern Eurasia with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia. They are perhaps the most well known species of mammoth and disappeared from most of its range at the end of the Pleistocene (10,000 years ago). Sid - the Ground Sloth Sid is a Ground Sloth shown in all four films as one of the main protagonists. He is portrayed as clumsy, annoying, slow moving, fast-talking, and unpopular; and has a lateral lisp. Little is known about Sid’s life, other than that Sid once lived in a tree with other sloths. The Ground Sloth is also known as Megalonyx which in Greek means “great claw”. It is an extinct genus of giant ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae endemic to North America from the Hemphillian of the Late Miocene era, living about 11,000 years ago. The type species, M. Jefferson, measured about 3 m (9.8 ft) and weighted up to 1 ton. Diego - Saber Toothed Cat Diego is a smilodon - a Saber Toothed Cat, who has a somewhat sarcastic personality, but without  malicious intent. He was sent by his pack to retrieve the human baby  - Roshan; when he found Roshan in Manny and Sid’s care, he pretended to lead them to the humans, but instead planned to lead them into an ambush by  the pack. However, when Manny  saved his life Diego changed his mind, telling him about the pack and helping to counter attack. Smilodon often called a Saber-toothed cat, or incorrectly a Saber-toothed tiger, is an extinct genus of machairodonts. This Saber-toothed cat was endemic to North and South America, living during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 mya-10,000 years ago). Scrat - Saber toothed squirrel Scrat is a Saber-toothed squirrel who is obsessed with collecting acorns, constantly putting his life in danger to obtain and defend them. He has his own stories in the film, independent of the main plot, which are parallel with the journeys of the other main characters, causing them to interact with him at times. This character is enormously successful and Scrat is viewed as a breakout character, the most popular of the franchise. In a special feature in the second film’s DVD, his name has been stated to be a mix of the words “squirrel” and “rat”, his species allegedly believed to have been a common ancestor of both. Scrat also appears in Ice Age: Continental Drift, when he finds a map leading to a mysterious acorn island, and he goes on a journey to find the island. At the end of the film, he finds ‘Scratlantis’, an island populated by Sabre-toothed squirrels and filled with nuts. The researchers recently found skulls of the Scrat-like animals embedded in rock in a remote area of northern Patagonia, about 100 miles from the city of Allen in the Argentinian province of Rio Negro. Ice Age Facts * The last glacial, called the Holocene glacial, peaked about 18,000 years ago and ended 10,000 years ago. * Ice covered 40 percent of the world 18,000 years ago.  Glaciers spread over much of Europe and North America 18,000 years ago. Ice caps grew in Tasmania and New Zealand. * About 18,000 years ago there were glaciers in Hawaii. 297 * Ice Ages are periods lasting millions of years when the Earth is so cold that the polar ice caps grow huge. There are various theories about why they occur (see climate change). * There have been four Ice Ages in the last 1000 million years, including one which lasted 100 million years. * The most recent Ice Age - called the Pleistocene Ice Age - began about 2 million years ago. * In an Ice Age the weather varies between cold spells called glacials and warm spells called interglacials. * There were 17 glacials and interglacials in the last 1.6 million years of the Pleistocene Ice Age. * The people of the Ice Age risked their lives to hunt the fierce woolly mammoth. It was a good source of meat, skins, bones and ivory.   http://www.houseandhome.org/ice-age-facts

Published on LakbimaNews on 26.08.2012 http://www.lakbimanews.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6611:lovable-creatures-of-ice-age&catid=41:mag&Itemid=12