Megafauna

For the past 700,000 years Earth’s climate has fluctuated with ice ages occurring about every 100,000 years with short warm spells or “interglacials” of about 10,000 years between them. Mammoths were able to migrate from Africa to around 6.7 million years ago and stay for about 4 million years before moving up into Southern Europe. But because the mammoth lived in the Arctic, many remains of the species have been found preserved in the permafrost. Mammoths survived in the climate until nearly 1650 BC before they became extinct. Scientists say the extinction of the mammoths was a combination of climate change and human intervention. Neanderthals hunted the large animals about 10,000 to 40,000 years ago encouraging the megafauna extinction. In the Americas nearly 75 percent of all animals weighing more than 100 pounds disappeared after humans arrived. At this time, scientists are still unsure of which of the two factors killed off the mammoth discovered in Oklahoma but are performing further…

thousands of years. Secondly, the extinctions of the large mammals directly correlate with the appearance of humans in those regions. Humans would have also targeted the large mammals as a primary desired food source. Additionally, the large megafauna in Africa had evolved together with the humans in the area, and thus the large mammals understood that humans were dangerous and adapted to living among humans. On the contrary, the large mammals in northern Eurasia and the Americas had never…

In this interview, I was surprised that Changlong Shi explains his viewpoints in a specific way which I never thought of. Changlong Shi believes that with the exception of irresistible outside forces, the desire of the human being is the only factor to make the world a dystopia, and the level of a dystopia can be defined through ranking its harmfulness. Changlong Shi argues that irresistible outside forces will probably cause a dystopia, but we do not need to worry about that because the…

The Pygmy three-toed sloth is an endangered species of the South American Amazon rainforest, and there is estimated to be less than 100 individuals remaining. The sloth has pale grey-brown fur and a tan-colored face with a distinctive dark band around the eyes. On the sloths fur you’ll see a greenish tint which is actually a unique species of symbiotic algae, which helps them camouflage. Little information is know about the life span of the pygmy three-toed sloth, but most species of sloths live…

According to National Geographic, the Giant Sloth, the Cuban Red Macaw, the New Zealand Giant Moa, the Tasmanian Tiger, and the Woolly Mammoth are all among the faction of species that are extinct but that could possibly be revived. In fact, a poll issued on National Geographic’s website allows users to simply and effortlessly vote for which extinct species they would like most to see resurrected. Astonishingly, scientists have actually finagled a way to potentially make this poll useful.…

Almost the entire skeleton of a mammoth was dug up in Michigan, and it has raised many questions as to what exactly happened to the woolly mammoth, the great best of the Ice Age. Did Humans Kill the Mammoth? Dan Fisher, paleontologist Dan Fisher proposes that prehistoric people may have killed and butchered the newly discovered mammoth, and what they didn’t consume immediately was refrigerated in the depths of a frigid lake. Other scientists argue that there is no certainty as to what killed…

In the novel “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert, humans are destroying the world by burning fossil fuels, polluting oceans, rivers, lakes, and the air but, is it really the individuals human 's fault or is it corporations caring too much of profit that they will do anything to make an extra pennie? How many times have you heard about oil spills? Personally I have lost count of the ever increasing number of oil spills. Deforestation is also caused caused by corporate greed acording to…

One of the emerging values recognized by human beings is the concern for our environments and the living creatures that we share them with, but what would happen if human beings stopped caring for their planet and completely disregarded any other living creature outside of the human race? Expert biologist, Jeff Corwin, discusses this idea in his article “The Sixth Extinction,” published by the Los Angeles Times. He argues in his article that while there have been preventative programs put into…

The Megafauna at Lake Mungo When archaeologists were studying Lake Mungo they discovered bones that came from megafauna ‘Big Animals’, which were giant animals that used to live in Australia, these animals no longer exist on Earth. These animals included the Giant Emu, Giant Wombat, Giant Lion, Tasmanian Tiger, Giant Lizard and Giant Kangaroo. The megafauna became extinct when people came to live in Australia, so did they die off naturally or did humans kill them? THEORY 1 Climate…

The term Megafauna means giant animals. The animals that fall in this category generally weigh over 40 kg. For e.g. mammals such as the Diprotodon weighed approximately 2780 kg which is also known as the largest marsupial and Thylacoleo which weighed between 100-1000 kg which is known as the largest meat-eating mammal ever lived. This term is also used to describe the animals that are extinct and use to live millions of years ago. Megafauna in Australia consisted mammals such as the large…