Latest Pleistocene extinctions Stories
The woolly mammoth died out suddenly and without a loss of genetic variation, all but ruling out climate change and inbreeding as possible causes of their extinction, according to a study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.According to a March 30 article by Marlowe Hood of the AFP, "The culprit might have been disease, humans or a catastrophic weather event, but was almost certainly not climate change."Furthermore, the scientists, including Anders Angerbjorn...
The scientists who discovered the remains of an ancient hobbit-like species of hominid have discovered that the species may have colonized the Indonesian island of Flores as much as a million years ago - far earlier than was first expected - according to a study published on Wednesday.Archaeologist Dr. Adam Brumm, who led the expedition that first discovered the skeletal remains of the diminutive Homo floresiensis on the isle of Flores in 2003, has published in the scientific journal...
A team of scientists has discovered that the drastic decline in Arctic musk ox populations that began roughly 12,000 years ago was due to a warming climate rather than to human hunting. "This is the first study to use ancient musk ox DNA collected from across the animal's former geographic range to test for human impacts on musk ox populations," said Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer Career Development assistant professor of biology at Penn State University and one of the team's...
For decades, the study of evolution has focused on the continent of Africa, the home of the majority of hominid fossils and the place where Homo erectus originated. However, the 2003 discovery of Homo floresiensis in Indonesia, and recent claims by researchers that it is indeed a new species of human, is challenging what scientists know about the origins of humanity."This is a new species that cannot be explained by any known pathology," Dr. William L. Jungers told the Associated...
Homo floresiensis, a pygmy-sized small-brained hominin popularly known as 'the Hobbit' was discovered five years ago, but controversy continues over whether the small brain is actually due to a pathological condition. How can its tiny brain size be explained? Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology have tackled this question in the context of a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of brain and body size throughout the larger primate family.Nick Mundy and Stephen...
A new scientific paper co-authored by a University of Adelaide researcher reports strong evidence that humans, not climate change, caused the demise of Australia's megafauna - giant marsupials, huge reptiles and flightless birds - at least 40,000 years ago.In a paper published today in the international journal Science, two Australian scientists claim that improved dating methods show that humans and megafauna only co-existed for a relatively short time after people inhabited Australia,...
Woolly mammoths and prehistoric horses grazed on the North American plains for several thousand years longer than hitherto assumedThis is shown by samples of ancient DNA, analyzed by an international team of research scientists under the leadership of Professor Eske Willerslev from Copenhagen University. Analyses of ancient DNA thereby once again revoke results of more common methods of dating, such as carbon 14 analysis of bone and tooth remains from extinct animals. These methods which had...
University of Alberta researchers are part of an international team that has used DNA samples from frozen dirt, not fossilized bones, to revise the history of North America's woolly mammoths and ancient horses.The work of U of A Earth and Atmospheric Sciences professor Duane Froese and his colleagues counters an important extinction theory, based on radiocarbon dating of bones and teeth. That analysis concluded that more than half of the large mammals in North America (the 'megafauna')...
Ancient DNA retrieved from extinct horse species from around the world has challenged one of the textbook examples of evolution - the fossil record of the horse family Equidae over the past 55 million years.The study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved an international team of researchers and the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) based at the University of Adelaide.Only the modern horse, zebras, wild asses and donkey survive today, but many...
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals "” including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers "” began their precipitous slide to extinction.And when their populations crashed, emptying a land whose diversity of large animals equaled or surpassed Africa's wildlife-rich Serengeti plains then or now, an entirely novel ecosystem emerged as broadleaved trees once kept in...
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....
