History Series / WildNewWorld

* PaletteSwap: The bear-sized ''Nothrotheriops'' and gigantic ''Eremotherium'' are the exact same model, just slightly different shades of brown.

* LaymansTerms: The narration entirely avoids referring to any of the featured animals by their scientific names (even the famous ''Smilodon'' is simply called "saber-toothed cat"), which makes identifying some of the more obscure fossil species difficult. The closest thing to an aversion is the ''Glyptotherium" being called a ''glyptodont'', as it has no common name.

* LaymansTerms: The narration entirely avoids referring to any of the featured animals by their scientific names (even the famous ''Smilodon'' is simply called "saber-toothed cat"), which makes identifying some of the more obscure fossil species difficult.

*** The first id the Natural Trap Cave, a famous fossil site in Wyoming where countless ice age animals fell down a 85-foot cavern, including short-faced bears. The story at the end shows a bison falling to its death during a stampede and subsequently, the short-faced bear that has been searching for a meal jumps down after the carcass, surviving the fall but trapping itself in the process.

** “American Serengeti” highlights the Natural Trap Cave, a famous fossil site in Wyoming where countless ice age animals fell down a 85-foot cavern, including short-faced bears. The story at the end shows a bison falling to its death during a stampede and subsequently, the short-faced bear that has been searching for a meal jumps down after the carcass, surviving the fall but trapping itself in the process. The same episode also incorporates the famous fossils of two bull Columbian mammoths who died with their tusks locked together, as well as the Hot Springs mammoth site, where many individuals (namely young males) got trapped in a slippery spring-fed pond while trying to drink.

While some beasts such as mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, and ground sloths are brought to life via CGI, many others are [[PortrayedByDifferentSpecies played by live-action actors]], often by mixing and matching footage of African wildlife with that of American ones. Besides the megafauna, the series also highlights other aspects of Pleistocene America, such as differences in climate and flora, the lowering of sea levels, natural disasters like the Missoula floods, and of course, the arrival of the first Native Americans.

* OvershadowedByAwesome: Most extant North American megafauna was present during the last ice age, but they were overshadowed (literally) by larger relatives or giants that have no equivalent on the continent alive today.

* OnlyInFlorida: Most of the featured megafauna either resemble extant animals or are familiar enough (hairy elephants, big cats with saber teeth, long-legged bears), but “Ice Age Oasis”, which is set in Florida, features some of the most outlandish animals that inhabited ice age America; the elephant-sized ground sloth ''Eremotherium'' and the alien-looking ''Glyptotherium'', a massive armadillo-like beast with a solid shell and [[BewareMyStingerTail an armored tailed tail used for defense]]. Of course, both giants are immigrants from South America, which is why they stuck to the tropics of Florida.

* OnlyInFlorida: Most of the featured beasts either resemble extant animals or are familiar enough (hairy elephants, big cats with saber teeth, long-legged bears), but “Ice Age Oasis”, which is set in Florida, features some of the oddest and most outlandish animals that inhabited ice age America; the elephant-sized ground sloth ''Eremotherium'' and the alien-looking armored ''Glyptotherium'', a bulky, armadillo-like beast with a solid shell and weighing as much as a small car. Of course, both animals are immigrants from South America, which is why they stuck to the tropics of Florida.

* FloodedFutureWorld: Another recurring theme in the series is how we are living in this world today, since 13,000 years ago, the great ice sheets locked up so much of Earth’s water that sea levels dropped dramatically, exposing vast expanses of land that are now submerged. Back then, Siberia and Alaska were joined together, forming Beringia, which is how many Old World species such as woolly mammoths, cave lions, saiga antelope, and eventually humans reached North America, and how native wildlife such as horses and camels traveled into the Old World, while further south, Florida doubled in size, which is why we find animal fossils and fossilized tree stumps in coastal waters.