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Map of Europe. This is a list of European species extinct in the Holocene that covers extinctions from the Holocene epoch, a geologic epoch that began about 11,650 years before present (about 9700 BCE) [A] and continues to the present day. [1] This list includes the European continent and its surrounding islands.
Some 277 fish species have been introduced to Europe, and over one-third of Europe's current fish fauna is composed of introduced species, [19] whereas more than a third of Europe's freshwater fish species are at risk of extinction, according to new data released by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
The extinction of the megafauna has been argued by some authors to be disappearance of the mammoth steppe rather than the other way around. Alaska now has low nutrient soil unable to support bison, mammoths, and horses. R. Dale Guthrie has claimed this as a cause of the extinction of the megafauna there; however, he may be interpreting it ...
Turiasaurus is considered the largest dinosaur from Europe, [428] [429] with an estimated length of 30 m (98 ft) and a weight of 50 t (55 short tons). [423] [429] However, lower estimates at 21 m (69 ft) and 30 t (66,000 lb) would make it smaller than the Portuguese Lusotitan, which reached 24 m (79 ft) in length and 34 t (75,000 lb) in weight.
Megafauna also play a role in regulating and stabilizing the abundance of smaller animals. During the Pleistocene, megafauna were diverse across the globe, with most continental ecosystems exhibiting similar or greater species richness in megafauna as compared to ecosystems in Africa today.
Beginning early in the 20th century, efforts to reintroduce extirpated charismatic megafauna to ecosystems have been an interest of a number of private and non-government conservation organizations. [5] Species have been reintroduced from captive breeding programs in zoos, such as the wisent (the European bison) to Poland's Białowieża Forest. [6]
Megafauna that arose on insular landmasses were especially vulnerable to human influence because they evolved in isolation from other landmasses, and thus were not subjected to the same selection pressures that surviving fauna were subject to, and many forms of insular megafauna were wiped out after the arrival of humans.
As part of the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, 80% of megaherbivore species became extinct, with megaherbivores becoming entirely extinct in Europe, Australia and the Americas. Recent megaherbivores include elephants , rhinos , hippos , and giraffes .