Ten giant animals that are not around any more, from Mental Floss.
A good companion read is Connie Barlow's The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms. I can never look at a coyote gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) vine by the side of the road without thinking of the missing mastodon that was supposed to eat it.
IIRC, global temperature change and changes in atmospheric oxygen levels (both due to non-human causes) and at the tail end, competition and hunting by modern humans, were the cause of the demise of these animals.
ReplyDeleteChas -
ReplyDeleteI have the same thoughts every time I see an avocado!
With me it's Durians... though those don't exactly grow by the side of the road 'round these parts.
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