The word megafauna means ‘big animals’, generally over 40 kilograms. It’s generally used as term used to explain particular large land animals that evolved after the extinction of the dinosaurs. After their extinction the surviving mammals, birds and reptiles evolved to include some very large animals; this group of megafauna was most widespread during the last Quaternary Period, in the last 2.5 million years. The megafaunas in Australia were very unique; and included giant marsupials such as the Diprotodon, huge flightless birds like the Genyornis, and giant reptiles such us the Varanus or ‘megalania’. About their extinction many theories were made by many scientist. There are three main theories: the “kill”, the “chill” and the “ill”. Each of them has a different meaning; the kill means that humans played a huge role in their extinction, such as
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When humans arrived 60,000 years ago, Australia was filled with rain forests; in 20,000 years those rainforests disappeared as well as the megafaunas in Australia. This idea came from David Bowman, ecology expert from Charles Darwin University. He said that humans might have influenced their extinction by hunting them down, but this would take “too much effort” to hunt the reduced population of the animals. Another scientist and researcher Gilbert Price believes that a climate change caused their extinction. As Australia’s weather changed from a cold-dry climate into a warmer and a lot drier climate, lakes started to dry out and there was less rain. The landscape slowly started to change onto a dry and wast land. As there was less rain, less food were produced naturally for these animals and as the lakes and rivers started to dry out their number might have reduced by dehydration. As I said earlier Price thinks that the climate change played the biggest
When humans arrived 60,000 years ago, Australia was filled with rain forests; in 20,000 years those rainforests disappeared as well as the megafaunas in Australia. This idea came from David Bowman, ecology expert from Charles Darwin University. He said that humans might have influenced their extinction by hunting them down, but this would take “too much effort” to hunt the reduced population of the animals. Another scientist and researcher Gilbert Price believes that a climate change caused their extinction. As Australia’s weather changed from a cold-dry climate into a warmer and a lot drier climate, lakes started to dry out and there was less rain. The landscape slowly started to change onto a dry and wast land. As there was less rain, less food were produced naturally for these animals and as the lakes and rivers started to dry out their number might have reduced by dehydration. As I said earlier Price thinks that the climate change played the biggest