Giant Camels Called Camelops Once Roamed Colorado, and the Fossil Record Proves It

Today, it’s hard to picture giant beasts roaming Colorado, but the fossil record proves they were here.

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Mammoths, mastodons, and giant bison get most of the attention, but Colorado was also home to a lesser-known giant: an extinct camel called Camelops.

Prehistoric Colorado + the Giant Camels that Roamed the Earth

Today, there are three species of camels, native to the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. (Australia has a big wild camel population, but those are descendants of camels brought over in the 1800s.)

Here’s the twist: camels actually got their start right here in North America more than 40 million years ago. Some eventually crossed into Asia and became the camels we know today. Others stayed behind, and one of the last to hang on was Camelops, a giant camel that roamed what’s now Colorado.

How Long Ago Were Camelops in Colorado?

The oldest Camelops fossils date back roughly three to four million years. Paleontologist Joseph Leidy named the animal in 1854 after part of a fossilized upper jaw turned up in what was then Kansas Territory.

Camelops died out around 12,000 to 13,000 years ago, along with most of North America’s giant animals. That means they overlapped with the first people in the Americas, and a site in Alberta, Canada shows clear evidence that early humans butchered them. Whether hunting helped wipe them out is still debated.

Camelops Roamed in Other States Besides Colorado

Camelops fossils have turned up all over western North America, from California and Washington east to the Great Plains, north to Alaska, and south into Central America.

One of the early finds came from along the Huerfano River in southern Colorado, where remains were described back in 1892.