Megafauna

Megatherium NHM

Mastodon, 2.5 to 3 meters (8-10 feet) at the shoulder and weighing 3500 and 5400 kilograms (4-6 tons)

Megafauna are large animals. The word is most used for the Pleistocene megafauna – the large land animals of the last ice age, such as mammoths. It is also used for the largest living wild land animals, especially elephants, giraffes, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elk, condors, etc.

Its use is connected with the discussion about the Holocene extinctions after the ice age. Most of the large land animals which were alive 12,000 years ago are now extinct, and there is much discussion as to what has caused this. The two main theories are hunting by humans, and climate change. Together, these reasons are enough to explain why these previously successful animals are now extinct. Elephant birds on Madagascar were certainly hunted to extinction, as were the Moas in New Zealand. Archaeological sites with evidence of moa hunting are all over New Zealand. The moas became extinct about five hundred years ago. The moas had survived being hunted by Haast's Eagle, but they did not survive being hunted for food by the Maoris.

For many others the climate changes may have been the main reason for their extinction.

Megafauna Media

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  The African bush elephant (foreground), Earth's largest extant land mammal, and the Masai ostrich (background), one of Earth's largest extant birds

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  Large terrestrial mammals compared in size to one of the largest sauropod dinosaurs, Patagotitan

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  Baleen whale comparative sizes

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  A size comparison between a human and 4 moa species:

  1. Dinornis novaezealandiae

  2. Emeus crassus

  3. Anomalopteryx didiformis

  4. Dinornis robustus
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  Correlations between times of first appearance of humans and unique megafaunal extinction pulses on different land masses

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  Cyclical pattern of global climate change over the last 450,000 years (based on Antarctic temperatures and global ice volume), showing that there were no unique climatic events that would account for any of the megafaunal extinction pulses

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  Indian rhinoceros, from Dürer's woodcut

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  Moa (Dinornis pictured) were the largest birds in New Zealand, weighing up to 250 kg (550 lb).

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  Diprotodon optatum was the largest known marsupial, approximately the size of a hippo. It became extinct 40,000 years ago.

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  "Megalania" (Varanus priscus), a giant carnivorous goanna of Australia, is the largest known terrestrial lizard; it might have grown to 7 meters long.