Start — iceage

Palaeotherium
Physical Attributes
Kingdom	Mammalia
Species	Palaeotherium
Eye Color	Varying
Skin Color	Varying

"If my trunk was that small, I wouldn't draw attention to myself, pal."

―Manny^[[src]]

Starts were mammals that lived during the ice age.

Traits

Small, round mammals, starts had small ears, short necks and stubby limbs ending in stout three-toed feet and short tails. The starts most notably had short trunks near their mouths that were not much use in holding onto things but still had feeling. Starts usually moved in herds and were not known for being able to move very fast due to their short legs and feet. Almost hairless, starts had grayish skins, though some individuals were somewhat darker in hue.

History

Starts are based on the Palaeotherium and were among the prey of Saber-toothed Tigers and Scimitar-toothed Cats. They, along with other animals, engaged in a long migration from north to south in a move to escape the ice ages and head to warmer lands down south. The starts, along with a number of other creatures, gradually made it to the warmer climates and made use of the naturally-occurring pools and water slides that were the result of the melting ice, but left the water parks once they were informed that the ice and snow were melting, which would flood the valley that the starts and all other animals lived in. The starts, along with all other creatures, left alive and sought out homes elsewhere. Among those that went on to find new homes were some that met an angry Tyrannosaurus Rex, thought to have been extinct, that was searching for her young. In time, the starts were among those animals that existed during the days of the continental drift and made the move out of the land they once lived in, as it was being threatened by the drifting landmasses, making it to a new island home by way of an ocean bound iceberg that they boarded. Few years later, some starts witnessed a meteor shower, and, not long after that, they were invited to the wedding of Peaches and Julian, two mammoths that were members of the herd that stopped a deadly asteroid.

Behind the Scenes

The starts bare a strong resemblance to modern day tapirs, however, they are actually Palaeotherium,^[1] and were initially referred to as "trunkless start". The name "start", chosen by who worked on the movie, probably comes from the Palaotherium's nature of being "at the start" of the proboscidean's evolution.

This depiction of Palaeotherium has its real-world contemporary depiction from Crystal Palace Park, when it was thought to bare a strong resemblance to a tapir, today, paleontologists recognize Palaeotherium as an extinct perissodactyl closely related to the horse family (Equidae), however, while it still had tapir-like overall body form, head shape, and locomotion style, the trunk is rather speculative due to limited fossil research.

Additionally, they, like many of the animals featured in the Ice Age films, are not actual creatures of the ice ages, but rather the era preceding them, approximately 35 million years back, lived in warm places, in Northern Africa, and were semiaquatic.