| Revision as of 17:51, 5 November 2004 editWandering Raleighite (talk | contribs)270 editsm wikified← Previous edit | Latest revision as of 21:59, 27 December 2023 edit undoXqbot (talk | contribs)Bots, Template editors2,335,724 editsm Bot: Fixing double redirect to Late Pleistocene extinctionsTag: Redirect target changed | ||
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| Throughout history, humans would wonder about the large, ]ized ] and ]s they would discover from time to time. in ] times the fossils were attributed to ] such as ]s and ]s. During the ], while ]es went off in hot pursuit of ], glory and pretty women, ] ]s had time for tamer endeavors. They would speculate about the large bones that could be found in the ]. Perhaps they had belonged to ]. | |||
| With modern hopefully more refined tools ]s have reconstructed a world of beasts as amazing as the dragons and unicorns of ], many larger versions of contemporary ], ] and ] famiies. ] ], at the end of the last ]. included ]s( Megatheria ) and ]s( Glyptodonts ) in ], ]s, ]s, ], ]s, early ]s called ] or more poetically ] ( dawn horse ), ] in ] and ]s, ] and ] in ]. | |||
| ], then as now dominated by ]s and ]s, supported giant meat-eating ]s, ], a giant ], a marsupial lion(]), and the 3m "] of doom", ], the 5 meter ] , ] and the giant ], ]. Since humans coexisted with these animals, some reearchers wonder it the beasts of the Australian ] legends refer to the ]l species. The mythical ], source of creation and destruction may be based on the ]. The hairy manlike ] may be the Diprotodon filtered through legend. Clearly it is difficult to translate the poetic vocabulary of myth into the technical language of paleontology. In its fossil form, Wonambi Naracoortensis does not need the legend to deserve the name "Rainbow Serpent". Its fossils have ]d and now they shimmer in all colors of the spectrum. | |||
| Paleontologists are able to make inferences about the lifestyles of these prehistoric creatures by studying the mechanical qualities of the teeth. Grinding ]s are useful for the ]s and ] of ]s. Tearing, stabbing teeth are most efficient in slaughtering prey. In this way scientists can make educated guesses about the dietary habits of the animal. | |||
| The three major extinction theories can be remembered as "Kill, chill and ill." The "kill" theory is that Pleistocene humans triggered the megafaunal extinction. This theory has two variants, "]" and "sitzkrieg" or "slow burn". The blitzkrieg theory is that humans the hunted the megafauna to extinction in a short time. The "sitzkrieg" theory is that human encroachment gradually destroyed habitat and led to a die out. Evidence that human and megafauna co-exsted for a long time weakens the "blitzkrieg" explanation. | |||
| The "chill" theory explains the extinctions by climatic change following the last Ice Age. Since there were multiple Ice Ages, the climatic theory raises the question, why did the extinctions occur only after the Last Ice Age? One tentative answer is that a nearby ] altered the ] environment and as a consequence exaggerated the climatic perturbation. It will require data from space research to advance this claim beyond speculation. | |||
| The "ill" theory is that a ] or hyperdisease caused the megafaunal extinction. According to this theory, large mammals were particularly vulnerable because they were fewer in number than smaller species. Size and population size tend to be inversely related. Some skeptics argue that ] will eliminate an extremely virulent strain because it kills its host too quickly to propogate. However this caveat only applies to ]s that depend on a host to survive. Airborn and waterborn ]s have no need to mind their manners. The researcher McPhee is searching ] in mammoth fossils from ] in ]. He hopes to find evidence of ]. | |||
| Some experts claim that various combinations of these factors are responsible for the extinctions. For now the disappearance of Pleistocene megafauna remains a mystery. However all researchers would agree that these long dead creatures continue to enrich our understanding of the world. | |||
Latest revision as of 21:59, 27 December 2023
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