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Clues to disappearance of North America's large mammals 50k years ago
- aeonik 2y agoThe new methods being used are cool and all, but I didn't see any hints about the extinction explicitly mentioned. From what I read, it seems that this new bone collagen spectroscopy, may, yield insights. And I'm sure it will, but they weren't in the article from what I could see.
- AlbertCory 2y agoClickbait. You didn't see them because they weren't there. The new techniques may identify genus, but no one's used them yet to get the dates of extinction.
- soneca 2y agoDid I understood correctly that we now have tools that will likely provide more clues to the disappearance but the text mentions no particular clue, yet? (I read it diagonally trying to dodge the ads)
- robotbikes 2y agoThat was my read. They can now identify species of very fragmentary bone remains via collagen protein matching. They didn't say what if anything clues this would/could lead to.
- xhkkffbf 2y agoMy problem with the notion that humans caused the extinction of large mammals is that humans supposedly originated in Africa and large mammals weren't extinct there. So how did that happen?
- soneca 2y agoMaybe more abundance of vegetal food during the Ice Age on Africa?
- llm_trw 2y agoThe large animals evolved along side humans and learned to fear/kill us on sight. All the other mega fauna had to deal with fully modern humans who already knew how to hunt.
- chrisco255 2y agoI just don't buy that. It's too hand wavey. Natural instinct is to fear the unknown, and to respond quickly to threats. Saber tooth cats roamed the continent too and there is plenty of evidence they hunted humans, along with bears that continue to hunt humans to this day. But there were also dire wolves, giant bison, cave bears, and many other large species that went extinct but for which we have smaller forms of alive today. Something must have occurred environmentally that led to the rapid deaths of large species. It's also not as if we have evidence of large populations of humans in the glacial era. You would need a modern civilization with at least metallic tools to spread far enough and wide enough to kill off multiple major species.
- paulryanrogers 2y agoHumans are surprising resourceful, especially when survival is on the line. Even before the metal ages it seems we were apex predators.
- benced 2y agoLarger creatures have long gestation cycles and tend to be very sensitive to any any changes. Even killing a few pregnant females a year could have been enough in a given region.
- baseballdork 2y ago> It's too hand wavey. Natural instinct is to fear the unknown, and to respond quickly to threats. Doesn’t the dodo show that that isn’t a given?
- llm_trw 2y agoThey fear the unknown because humans ate all the ones that didn't. During the age of sail whenever a ship would land on a new island they local animals could be plucked like fruit because they didn't fear humans. The results were always quite predictable.
- otabdeveloper4 2y agoMaybe humans didn't originate in Africa. There are many arguments for and against. But this is an ideological and political issue, not a scientific question. So case closed, the Consensus Is Settled.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> Maybe humans didn't originate in Africa. There are many arguments for and against. Sure, but the arguments against are in the same vein as the argument that, if I draw a circle, it's not a real circle, because I don't have the level of fine control over my hand that would be necessary to produce one of those, and the tip of my pen is too wide. True, but not really relevant to anything, and in particular unlikely to convince anyone that it's a mistake to call what I drew "a circle".
- AlbertCory 2y agoI have not seen the arguments against. What are they?
- adolph 2y agoMy impression is that relatively recent genetic findings open "recent out-of-Africa" to conjectures of "its complicated mostly-out-of-Africa" https://www.edge.org/conversation/christopher_stringer-rethinking-out-of-africa https://www.edge.org/conversation/christopher_stringer-rethi...
- AlbertCory 2y agoI found this kinda hard to follow, but it doesn't seem UFO-level crazy, anyway. I'm sure this is ignorant, but: if two individuals can interbreed and produce fertile offscreen, then aren't they, by definition, the same species?
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> if two individuals can interbreed and produce fertile off[spring], then aren't they, by definition, the same species? No. For example, that would make it impossible to determine the species of fossils. For another example, wolves are considered a different species from dogs, and coyotes are considered separate from each. For a third example, bacteria don't interbreed at all, but we don't consider each of them to be their own species. The definition you allude to is technically known as the "biological species concept", which should be a hint that it's not viewed as definitive.
- bee_rider 2y agoAfrica is the pro league of evolution. Humans escaped and it was like a professional playing in beer league. Unsporting.
- foxandmouse 2y agoSorry, but this is clearly a False Dilemma fallocy.
- ftkftk 2y agoWhen I go fossiling in Florida almost every large find is from the Pleistocene or Holocene, when Florida was not covered by the ocean. Identifying the bone fragments is always a big puzzle that involves a good bit of study and reference books. A fun puzzle for sure, but sometimes you end up with a find that you just can't place. It would be great to have a technique such as ZooMS to positively identify the unidentifiable.
- throwawaycities 2y agoInteresting. South, central, north Florida or the coasts? Any chance you’re looking at coral rock?
- ftkftk 2y agoSouth Florida. Definitely not coral rock.
- jmclnx 2y agoI still believe it was due to Humans. Megafauna disappeared around the time Humans reached the Americas, way too much of a coincidence to me. These mammals were there before the Ice Age and I think the coming of the ice age was just as hard on then as the retreating ice. The difference were humans.
- chrisco255 2y agoActually they're not really clear on the timelines of extinction and arrival so it's not an open and shut case.
- mdavidn 2y agoThe same fate befell the moa, a large flightless bird native to New Zealand.
- lostlogin 2y agoThe Haast Eagle too. They hunted Moa, and as you’d expect from an eagle that hunted 200kg birds, it too was a monster. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast%27s_eagle
- mkl 2y agoAnd New Zealand's other big birds (e.g. giant geese, harriers, eagles, swans [1]), after humans arrived. And elephant birds and giant lemurs in Madagascar, after humans arrived. And many large animals in Australia (giant wombats, kangaroos, marsupial "lions", etc. [2]), after humans arrived. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extinct_birds_of_New_Zealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extinct_birds_of_New_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna
- dexwiz 2y agoWhat about the inverse? Humans expanded to the Americas after megafauna populations were reduced. Its easy to look at things like poaching and assume humans have always been the dominate species. But megafanua like moose or brown bears are still dangerous, even today.
- DarkSucker 2y agoIt seems to me this data could be used to correlate a species/genus to a location if one knows where the samples came from. If one also knows the date of the geological strata the samples came from, then one also has a date correlation. A particular animal at a site at some time seems like information a researcher can use.
- Efisio 2y ago[dead]
- throwawaycities 2y agoIn case anyone else was wondering, giant beavers didn’t construct dams.
- frithsun 2y agoIt's not hotly contested. Certain political interests object to the natural and obvious explanation that humans arrived and killed all the megafauna. It's like when creationists can evolution controversial. It's not. You just have a political problem with things that are obviously true.
- mkl 2y agoWhat is with the "50k" in that headline? The date of 50k years ago does not seem to appear anywhere in the linked academic paper, does not correspond to climate change at the start of the current interglacial, and does not correspond to evidence of the arrival of humans in North America. Even the body of the phys.org article doesn't say the extinction happened then.
- jonahbenton 2y agoI read it as being an arbitrary round number click baity point in time for declaring "peak mega fauna." And then, whoosh, just like that, they were gone.