Half of all megafauna species weighing over 100 lbs vanished at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Gone were woolly mammoths, mastodons, direwolves, giant cave bears, Irish elk, giant camels, and 200 lb giant beavers. While the overkill hypothesis blames humans, the speaker favors a cosmic catastrophe explanation.
50% of megafauna species over 100 lbs went extinct at end of last ice age
Key facts
- 50% of megafaunal species over 44 kg (100 lbs) body weight went extinct at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition
- Extinct species include woolly mammoths, mastodons, giant cave bears, direwolves, giant camels, Irish elk (Megaloceros), Camelops, Arctodus (giant short-faced bear), and Castoroides (5600 lb giant beavers)
- Overkill or blitz hypothesis first proposed in the 1960s as the cause of megafauna extinction
- Speaker rejects overkill hypothesis in favor of catastrophe-driven extinction linked to a major cosmic encounter at the end of the last ice age
- Evidence cited of cascading effects and feedbacks triggered by the cosmic encounter around 11,000-14,000 years ago
Sources
Pleistocene Epoch - Megafaunal Extinctionsbritannica.com
The extinction event is most distinct in North America, where 32 genera of large mammals vanished during an interval of about 2,000 years, ...
Worldwide Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene ...nature.com
by J Bergman · 2023 · Cited by 105 — Furthermore, the estimated median rate is negative for 93% (129/139) of species, indicating that megafauna species generally experienced a ...
Late Pleistocene extinctionsen.wikipedia.org
Overall, during the Late Pleistocene about 65% of all megafaunal species worldwide became extinct, rising to 72% in North America, 83% in South America and 88% ...
Why Did the Ice Age Titans Go Extinct?nhm.org
Around 12,700 years ago, North America lost 70 percent of its large mammals—a megafaunal extinction event paleontologists and archaeologists ...
Late Pleistocene megafauna extinction leads to missing ...pnas.org
more than 40% of mammals have lost at least 80% of their historical range … 71.4% of browsers, 89% of grazers, and 80% of mixed feeders >1 kg ...
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