A week after the estemmenosuchus mission, and with only two days left before Novum finally makes their decision on whether or not it's time to allow the park to be opened to the public, the time has come to rescue the one and only woolly mammoth. And with Nikolai and Will being allowed to tag along as special guests, the rescue team is willing to pull out all the stops to ensure they get the mighty ice age icon to the safety of the park. But when a vicious blizzard comes rolling in and separates them into three separate groups, it isn't long before the rescue team finds themselves having to give everything they have to survive against the elements, local wildlife, and also a particularly sinister anthropological surprise. Meanwhile, back at the park, Cynthia begins making a concerted effort at mending fences with the people at the park that she knew (and wronged) in the past.
- Adaptational Context Change:
- In Prehistoric Earth, a neanderthal got rescued from getting trampled or gored by a woolly mammoth and woolly rhino by Leon and Drew and subsequently helped intervene at a crucial moment during the duo's subsequent efforts at rescuing a cave lion and lioness. Here, the duo that saves his counterpart from certain death at the 'blades' of an adult bull woolly mammoth and an entire crash of coelodonta are Alice and Will, and he in turn saves them from an adult female cave leopard and an entire pack of cave wolves all at once.
- Speaking of the cave lions, in this story the two cave lions rescued are encountered separately from each other, with the male (named Simba) being found wounded and weak by himself in an otherwise abandoned cave while the female (named Nala) is seen attempting to hunt a woolly mammoth calf on her own (whereas in Prehistoric Earth she and Simba's counterpart were hunting the calf together).
- Bears Are Bad News: Baloo the cave bear does not take kindly to getting woken up and finding his cave intruded by Will and Alice. Similarly, adolescent steppe brown bear brothers Kenai and Denahi react very antagonistically to the duo's initial efforts at getting them through the portal while they're in the midst of guarding their recently deceased other brother Sitka.
- Braving the Blizzard: Within minutes after arrival, the rescue team (complete with temporary guest members Nikolai and Will) find themselves set upon and separated by a vicious blizzard that they have to trek their way through and find shelter against.
- Brutish Bulls: A combined herd of auroch and steppe bison are invoked into behaving this way when Nikolai riles them up into charging by waving a conspicuous flag around in their line of sight so that their charge will allow them to go barreling right through the portal.
- Bull Seeing Red: A variant of this is exploited by Nikolai against a herd of aurochs and steppe bison when he waves a (possibly genuinely red) marking flag in their line of sight to rile them up into charging towards him and Jack for the sake of going through the portal.
- Cruel Elephant: Male mammoth George does not take kindly to a neanderthal man's close proximity to him over the course of his time in the ice age prior to his rescue. The presence of Alice and Will (complete with Alice using her audio recording device to playback a recording of an apparent rival bull mammoth's bellow) does not improve his mood.
- Frazetta Man: An entire tribe of these, known to the neanderthals as 'Kzamm', ends up encountered by Jack and Nikolai during their escapades in the ice age. And in a unique twist on this trope, these beings actually prove smarter and comparatively more advanced than the neanderthals and cro-magnons (by virtue of having a language, knowing how to cure meat and a rudimentary knowledge of battle tactics).
- Guest-Star Party Member: Will and Nikolai end up tagging along with the rescue team during the rescue mission as 'plus ones'.
- Heinous Hyena: An entire pack of cave hyenas are encountered by Alice and Will over the course of their escapade in the ice age. And they prove fairly antagonistic without even actually moving to try to attack the duo before getting eventually tempted into rushing through the portal by offerings of meat from a nearby mammoth carcass.
- Honorable Elephant: Martha the mammoth, while initially proving understandably aggressive in her efforts at trying to protect her wounded sister before she gets her trust earned by Jack and Nikolai, is ultimately quite reasonable and friendly once her trust has been earned. The larger woolly mammoth herd are likewise quick to accept Drew and Leon as being worthy of their trust once they help prevent the single calf amongst their number from getting killed and eaten by Nala the cave lioness.
- Involuntary Group Split: The rescue team ends up unintentionally divided into three separate duos over the course of the entire mission, courtesy of a vicious blizzard.
- Knight of Cerebus: When the Ape Men show up, things immediately become darker for our protagonists, with the hunt leader nearly strangling Jack to death and the whole band coming close to killing Jack, Nikolai and the mammoths. Even before they appear, their indirect presence darkens the narrative.
- Mammoths Mean Ice Age: As of this episode, the rescue team has traveled to the famed Ice Age for the very first time. And naturally, the target species for this rescue mission is the woolly mammoth.
- The Marvelous Deer: An entire herd of megaloceros are amongst the animals rescued, and they are treated with a decent degree of awe by both Leon and Drew (who personally get them through the portal) as well as by Cass and Horace (the latter of whom is set to personally care for them once they're fully settled into the park).
- Mythology Gag: Takes heavy cues from the 2nd episode of the original Prehistoric Park series, its equivalent chapter in Prehistoric Park: Extinction World, and Prehistoric Earth episode Full Fathom Five.
- Panthera Awesome: Cave leopards and cave lions are amongst the animals rescued in this episode, and they both prove very awe inspiring and terrifying beasts over the course of their time featured.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: The younger of the two adult males amongst the coelodonta crash is named Achilles.
- Rhino Rampage: A local crash of elasmotherium prove quite eager to charge at Drew and Leon once goaded into coming their way by the sound of air horns. A local crash of woolly rhino that Alice and Will encounter similarly prove very charge happy after first they both smell and hear the approach of a neanderthal man and bull woolly mammoth and then they get brought to their Rage Breaking Point by the sound of Will blowing an air horn at them.
- Savage Wolves: A pack of cave wolves prove very vicious in trying to convince Sabor the female cave leopard to not try to eat a tarpan carcass they themselves want to eat. And they don't take any more kindly to the presence of Will when they catch the latter trying to sneak up behind them.
- Ship Tease: A decent amount of future romance fuel unfolds between Leon and Yolanda, Jack and Colette, and Horace and Cass. And there's even some very subtle helpings of promising material on display, in a manner of speaking, between Will and Alice.
- Shout-Out:
- To A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones: The six cave wolf pups are named Grey Wind, Lady, Summer, Nymeria, Shaggy Dog, and Ghost (with Ghost even being an albino like his namesake).
- To The Chronicles of Narnia: The alpha male cave wolf and father of the six above mentioned pups is named Maugrim.
- To Babar: The elderly adult male coelodonta is named Rataxes.
- To Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and general Santa Claus mythos: Three of the megaloceros fawns are named Rudolph, Clarice, and Fireball. Eight of the adult megaloceros are named after Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Vixen. One of the tarpan foals is named Hermey. Finally, the single male amongst the three coelodonta/woolly rhino calves is named Cornelius (as in Yukon Cornelius).
- To The Jungle Book: Baloo from Prehistoric Earth makes the jump from that fic to this one.
- To Brother Bear: Two adolescent steppe brown bear brothers are named Kenai and Denahi (with their slain additional brother being given the honorary name of Sitka).
- To Seeker Bears: Two of the other adult cave bears are named Toklo and Aiyanna.
- To Tarzan: The adult female cave leopard is named Sabor.
- To The Lion King: The cave hyenas are named Shenzi, Banzai, Ed, Janja, Cheezi, Chungu, Nne, Tano, Jasiri, Madoa, Wema, Tunu, Kamari, and Azizi. The adult male cave leopard is named Makucha. And, naturally, the two cave lions are named Simba and Nala.
- To Quest for Fire: The ape men are referred to in the neanderthal language as 'Kzamm'.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Martha's sister is found alive (albeit, heavily wounded) and subsequently rescued in this version of continuity (and even gets named Ellie).
