MAP: What the Earth would be like if humans never existed

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Daniel Martins

Digital Reporter

Tuesday, August 25, 2015, 1:53 PM - Rhinos and elephants in Europe? Canada's sub-Arctic teeming with large animals?

It could have happened -- if mankind hadn't gotten in the way.

That's finding of a new study published by Aarhus University in Denmark. The researchers extrapolated the numbers of species of mammals weighing 45 kg or more in non-human world, and compared it to current distribution of species of that size.

According to them, here's how Earth would look if humans had never arrived to reduce animal populations:

And here's how Earth's mammal distribution looks today:

It's a totally different world. Today, only the interior of Africa looks like it supports substantial numbers of large mammals. In Canada, the mountains of the west are the last refuge for large concentrations of animals like wolves, bears and moose, with just stragglers hanging on elsewhere, if at all.