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Not just giant beavers, there were all kinds of giant animals before humans arrived. Great sloths, mastodons, etc. etc. New Zealand had these huge birds, Moa, t
by kreyenborgi 1y ago
Not just giant beavers, there were all kinds of giant animals before humans arrived. Great sloths, mastodons, etc. etc. New Zealand had these huge birds, Moa, there are sites where they've found piles of bones and fireplaces obviously made for eating Moa, which went extinct quite soon after humans arrived.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Extinction:_An_Unnatural_History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Extinction:_An_Unn... is a pretty fun read about how we've destroyed everything in our path.
- vel0city 1y agothe Houston Museum of Natural Science has a Eremotherium (giant ground sloth) on display -- I'd hate to have one of these guys invade a campsite! https://blog.hmns.org/2017/04/the-founding-father-and-the-ficticious-feline-the-story-of-thomas-jefferson-and-his-mis-identified-sloth/ https://blog.hmns.org/2017/04/the-founding-father-and-the-fi...
- cyberax 1y agoThey all had a fatal flaw: they were tasty and slow.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoYep. The evidence may not be completely conclusive, but I'd bet on the side of humans (plus climate to a degree) as the primary cause of the Quaternary megafauna extinctions in North and South America. Buffalo, passenger pigeons, and old growth forest extents make me think us humans destroy almost everything.