Pleistocene Extinction n n Affected the Pleistocene Megafauna
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Pleistocene Extinction n n Affected the Pleistocene Megafauna Only land mammals Happened about 11000 years ago Affected all of the continents
Megafauna n North America n Mammoths n Mastodons n Horses n Camels n Ground sloths n n Glyptodonts Saber-toothed cats Short-faced bears Dire wolves
Megafauna n South America n n n Eurasia and Africa n n n Hoofed mammals NA immigrants Saber-toothed cats Wooly rhinos Australia n All giant marsupials
Causes: Overkill n Extinctions peaked at a time when humans arrived in NA n n Evidence of horses and camels being hunted Opposition n n Bison were hunted, around today Extinctions started in NA before Bering Land bridge
Causes: Overkill n n Humans evolved alongside African megafauna, still around Australian extinction happened before humans came to continent
Causes: Environmental Transition n Land started to transition from glacier to interglacial n n n Land went from mild and uniform to drier and seasonal Plants started to go extinct Animals that depended on them died out
Other Causes n Combination n n Loss of food plus hunting overwhelmed some species Keystone Species n In East Africa, African Elephants keep grasslands open When they were wiped out by poaching, brush grew in place of grass n Grassland mammals disappeared n
Other Causes n Mastodons and mammoths may have played same roles as elephants n n Humans may have hunted them to extinction Cascade effect on extinction of other animals
