Latest Pleistocene extinctions Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online During the Pleistocene epoch, an astounding diversity of large-bodied mammals inhabited the so-called “mammoth steppe” – a cold and dry, yet productive, environment that extended from western Europe through northern Asia and across the Bering land bridge to the Yukon territory. Three types of large predators roamed the steppe during the Pleistocene, wolves, bears and large cats. After the end of the last ice age, only wolves and...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of researchers led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has completed a major review of the available evidence to conclude that most species of gigantic animals that once roamed the Australian continent disappeared before the arrival of humans. These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and challenge the claim that humans were the primary cause of extinction for...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online For over 20 years, archeologists have been recovering an unusually high number of large carnivore fossils from a cave near Madrid, Spain. According to a new report in the open access journal PLOS ONE, the saber-toothed cat, hyena and red panda ancestor remains found at the site are the result of these animals purposely wandering into the cave and then becoming trapped under mysterious conditions between 9 and 10 million years ago....
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The hobbit human, a small-statured race that evolved separately from our own ancestor Homo erectus on an island of the Indonesian Archipelago some 50,000 years ago, has been discovered by Japanese scientists to have a bigger brain than once believed. Hobbit humans, named after the tiny folk from JRR Tolkein's novels, are collectively known as Homo floresiensis (Man of Flores). The remains of the ancient humans were discovered on...
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 21, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A National Science Foundation grant of $405,000 will fund Mark Bush and biological sciences graduate students on summer field research explorations to Brazil, Peru, and Panama over the next three years. Their megafauna extinction research will explore the cause of the largest recent mass extinction of large mammals. The extinction event occurred between 15,000 and 9,000 years ago--a time of rapid warming at the end of the last...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Although it is considered completely taboo in most modern societies, an ancient human skull found in northern China suggests inbreeding could have been prevalent among ancient peoples around 100,000 years ago, according to a report in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The skull – which was found at Xujiayao, a mountainous excavation site several hundred miles from the Mongolian border – contained an enlarged parietal foramen (EPF),...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online The discovery of five-million-year-old fossils has resulted in the discovery of a new genus and species of extinct saber-toothed cat, according to research published in Wednesday’s edition of the peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLOS One. The fossils are part of the same lineage as the Smilodon fatalis, a carnivorous apex predator that could have weighed as much as 600 pounds and had long upper canine teeth, according to the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The idea of bringing woolly mammoths and saber tooth cats back from the dead has been a popular one, and this concept of "de-extinction" is the focus National Geographic's cover for its April issue. Author Carl Zimmer wrote in April's National Geographic cover story about what scientists have done, and are doing to work on bringing some extinct species back from the dead. Species discussed in the feature focus on those that went...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Researchers have discovered the fossilized remains of a giant prehistoric species of camel in the far northern regions of Canada, suggesting that the modern versions of these hoofed creatures are descended from ancestors which lived within the Arctic Circle. A team led by paleontologist Dr. Natalia Rybczynski of the Canadian Museum of Nature found 30 fossil fragments of a leg bone on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, during the summers...
JH Exteriors is a sponsor of the 2013 Mastodon Fair, Hillsboro, MO. Jefferson county, MO (PRWEB) February 20, 2013 Event: Mastodon Fair Premier, March 23, 2013 The Mastodon Fair is quickly approaching and will be here before you know it! The Mastodon Fair is an art and science competition for children in grades K-12 from area public, private and home schools. Now in its 34th year this annual competition is hosted by Jefferson College at their Field House on the Hillsboro, MO campus....
Latest Pleistocene extinctions Reference Libraries
Commonly known as the Eurasian cave lion or the European cave lion, Panthera leo spelaea is an extinct subspecies of lion. It is thought to have lived during the Pleistocene epoch, and may have lived in the Balkans in southeastern Europe until 2,000 years ago. The range of this cave lion would have included northwestern North America, Asia, and areas of Europe and would have extended from Germany, Spain, and Great Britain to the Yukon Territory. Its range also extended from Turkistan to...
The stag-moose (Cervalces scotti) is also known as the stag moose and was actually a deer that resembled a moose. It resided in North America during the Pleistocene era. Its range included New Jersey and Iowa, reach north from Arkansas to Southern Canada. It inhabited wetlands in these areas. This animal had long legs, a head resembling an elk, and huge, complex antlers. The stag-moose became extinct during the mass extinction of large mammals that occurred in the last Ice Age on North...
The shrub-ox (Euceratherium collinum) is a close relative of the modern musk-ox, and is an extinct member of the family Bovidae. It inhabited North America during the late Pleistocene, appearing before the first bovids entered North America from Eurasia. These muskoxen became extinct approximately 11,500 years ago. The shrub-ox was very large, approximately in between the sizes of a musk-ox and an American Bison. Research done on pellets left by these oxen shows that they browsed for food...
Harlan’s muskox (Bootherium bombifrons) is an extinct type of bovine, also known as the woodland muskox. It lived in North American during the late Pleistocene era, and was one of the most widely distributed oxen at that time. This bison died out around 11,000 years ago. Many fossils of Harlan’s muskox have been found in New Jersey, Texas, Oklahoma, Alaska, and California, including a nearly complete individual found in 1940. Three other types of muskoxen inhabited North America...
The steppe wisent (Bison priscus) or steppe bison was common to North America, Central Asia, Europe, and Beringia during the Quaternary period. It is thought that the steppe bison appeared around the same time as the aurochs , an extinct type of cattle, in Asia. Descendants of the steppe bison are often confused with the aurochs species. During the late Pleistocene era, the steppe wisent became extinct, giving rise to the modern wisent in Europe, and eventually the modern Bison in America....
