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A marsupial lion skeleton in the Naracoorte Caves, South Australia. The term Australian megafauna refers to the megafauna in Australia [1] during the Pleistocene Epoch.Most of these species became extinct during the latter half of the Pleistocene, and the roles of human and climatic factors in their extinction are contested.
An analysis of Sporormiella fungal spores (which derive mainly from the dung of megaherbivores) in swamp sediment cores spanning the last 130,000 years from Lynch's Crater in Queensland, Australia, showed that the megafauna of that region virtually disappeared about 41,000 years ago, at a time when climate changes were minimal; the change was ...
There is little evidence of human interaction with extinct Australian megafauna, with one notable exception being the burning of Genyornis (a type of giant dromornithid bird related to ducks) eggshells. [117] Megafauna species may have survived considerably later in New Guinea, until the Last Glacial Maximum. [118]
Megalania (Varanus priscus) is an extinct species of giant monitor lizard, [1] part of the megafaunal assemblage that inhabited Australia during the Pleistocene.It is the largest terrestrial lizard known to have existed, but the fragmentary nature of known remains make estimates highly uncertain.
Thylacoleo is thought to have become extinct around 40,000 years ago as part of the Late Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, essentially simultanteously with the vast majority of Australian megafauna. It has been contested as to the relative importance of climatic change vs the impact of recently arrived Indigenous Australians (who arrived in ...
Horton therefore claimed that Lancefield is a decisive example of the survival of Australian Megafauna for many thousands of years after the arrival of modern humans in prehistoric Sahul. [ 2 ] However, when Lancefield Swamp was investigated by van Huet, it was found that the bones had been reworked by fast-flowing water at some time after the ...
In zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The most common thresholds to be a megafauna are weighing over 46 kilograms (100 lb) [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] (i.e., having a mass comparable to or larger than a human ) or weighing over a tonne , 1,000 kilograms (2,205 lb) [ 2 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ...
It is hypothesized that the arrival of the first humans in Australia (around 48–60 thousand years ago) and their hunting and landscape-changing use of fire may have contributed to the disappearance of the megafauna. However, drought conditions during peak glaciation (about 18,000 years ago) are a significantly confounding factor.