5/25/14 & 5/26/14: This week on "Fieldnotes:" "Mont-Africa," by Camille Barr.
"Africa and Montana are two locations in the world with extremely high mammal diversity. While Africa has many more large hoofed mammals than anywhere else, for its size, Montana is remarkable in its own diversity. Africa may reign supreme in sheer mammal numbers, but Montana has an interesting claim that further binds these two regions of the world: the area that includes Montana is the birthplace of many of the mammals we think of as exclusively African. Fossils of animals that look like zebras and camels have been found in locales as close as Idaho, likely having died out here as the climate cooled or early humans moved in, but persisting in more agreeable climes such as Africa."
