Dire wolf

Don’t stray too far. There are direwolves about. I saw their tracks earlier in the day. They’d eat your like for supper and wonder where the rest of the meal was.

“Pretty dangerous, kid, I mean walking the trail alone.” The elderly driver smacked his lips as he launched into a litany of doom. “Get lost easily enough. Get eaten by direwolves. Landslides and avalanches. And . . .”

An army, deep carven: men like the tribesmen of the north, tall and high-nosed and proud; chariots drawn by strange beasts, cats and broad-horned bulls and winged direwolves; women riding upon huge birds.

Possibly the most unchanged and perfect fossil bones are those from Pleistocene mammals and birds entombed in the tar pits of Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles. […] Before they disappeared forever, their carcasses attracted predatory direwolves, sabretooth cats and scavenging vultures, all of which also became trapped and died.