Animals inhabiting the Blackfoot Traditional Homeland during the last Ice Age (about 115,000 to 12,000 years ago) were very different than today. These animals, many of them extinct today, were well adapted to the far colder temperatures of the time. Many were large (human-size or larger) and are collectively referred to as "megafauna". They sported thick coats and dangerous body parts such as large tusks and teeth. Some of the megafauna found in the region include mammoths, American horses, saber-toothed tigers, short faced bears, muskoxen, camels, caribou, and extinct bison. Of these, the bison and grizzly bear remain in Blackfoot Aboriginal territory today as descendants of their older counterparts, but the rest were extirpated form the region. Others, such as moose or elk are more recent newcomers that arrived at the very end of the Ice Age (modern horse were introduced by Europeans only a few centuries ago).
Fossils of Ice Age megafauna and other animals are tied to Blackfoot oral traditions and ceremonialism. Elders transmit memories of a time when ancestors lived alongside powerful animals, and know that the First Blackfoot, Matumaatapi, set their first camp among them.
“We remember the Furry Animal times, when some creatures were half-animal and half-human. This was long ago, when we had no language but lived long lives.” (Andy Blackwater, Kainai, 2017)
“In the beginning, ancient bison and other animals were cannibals. We had to learn how to kill them.” (Francis First Charger, Kainai, 2004)
Some stories from 19th century oral tradition center on Blackfoot ancestors overcoming monsters with help of the hero, Kutoyis, and Old Man Napi. The biography of Kutoyis references his slaying of evil beings and a cannibal, possibly representing either various species of megafauna or evil humans entering Blackfoot territory. Napi is said to have taught the people how to make weapons and what techniques to use to hunt and kill these animals, particularly bison, so that the beasts would no longer cannibalize the Matumaatapi.