Dire wolves, camels, and other extinct giant mammals that used to live in North America

• North America used to be crawling with giant mammals, from dire wolves to big cats.
• Horses and camels evolved on the continent while others, like bison, crossed over from Asia.
• Most of these mammals went extinct around 10,000 years ago and scientists are still debating why.

Towering 13 feet tall and weighing a hefty 7 tons, the African elephant is the biggest land mammal on Earth. But that wasn't always the case.

Tens of millions of years ago, shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct, mammals grew to epic proportions, dwarfing the animals we see today.

"There used to be cow-sized wombats in Australia, and there were armadillos the size of cars in South America," Emily Lindsey, an assistant curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, told Insider.