Talk:Pleistocene megafauna

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Merge with megafauna and Australian megafauna?

      • It has value in addition to these as it is more descriptive, and details the extinction theories as a whole. It needs work, but it can be improved and expanded. Sabine 17:20, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To further my initial comment, this needs a lot of work. I took out some glaring errors, such as Australian mastodons and dawn horses (which were from the Eocene!), I'd prefer it if someone who knew more about Quaternary Extinctions took on the later part of the article,)Sabine 18:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC) User:CayteMeant to cut and paste monotreme not mastadon.

Made extensive copyedit. Also tried to remove some of the hyperbole. The 'Megafauna and legend' section is still problematic... it seems speculative and there are no citations for any of the facts. I am particularly suspicious of the motives ascribed to the conquistadores (did they really go looking for hot women?). However I limited my edits there to grammar and language use.--Leperflesh 20:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree re: 'Megafauna and Legend'. Don't want to do anything drastic as very new to fiddling with Wikipedia, but it's completely lacking in citation and relies on anonymous 'researchers' and 'scientists'. Cotard 11:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Fact Check: Wikipedia's own article on woolly rhinos states that they lived in Eurasia, and not in North America (which is true), while this article claims they were part of the North American megafauna.--Maniraptor 42 23:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[[1]] says that they "have been discovered throughout Europe and Asia, although apparently they did not manage to extend their distribution into North America or to Ireland". Other articles on a cursory google search appear to agree. I'm making the change based on this evidence, although of course if anyone can substantiate a north american location they should change it back.--Leperflesh 23:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Civilization

The ice age was ending roughly 10,000 years ago … but that was also marks the beginnings of human civilization. Perhaps was the cause of extinctions (remember, Megafauna died out in Europe the same ways it did in the Americas, even though humans had a small presence in Europe) … I need to find some good sourced information on that. Nonprof. Frinkus 21:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I found information on how there were 7 varieties of tree and ground sloth existant on Cuba until the arrival of Homo sapiens at 7000 CE, where they all vanished. Many other animals clearly survived the end of the last ice age, such as Mammoths, Dwarf Elephants to Cuvieronius but could not survive the age of man (ie. civilization). I think it is naïve to think that humans did not play the largest (but probably not purely exclusive) role in the demise of animals species. Be you mammoth, dodo or passenger pigeon, never go near the wise hand of man. Nonprof. Frinkus 00:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Palaeoloxodon?

Could the Palaeoloxodon be included in this list? They went extinct in Europe mainly 30,000 years ago, had a Japanese species survive longer and a Mediterranean dwarf species lasting until 8,000 years ago. Nonprof. Frinkus 00:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger

Agree with merging New World Pleistocene extinctions and Pleistocene megafauna, because I don't think the extinction of such a specific set of species warrants an article of it's own. Much rather I'd put the extinction theories into the article which is about the species themselves, thereby putting all information about them in one spot. Alternatively, create an article (or list) named extinction theories, though I think there is not enough information to compose an entire article out of. Disagree with merging it with the megafauna or Australian megafauna article, because there is zero mention of extinction theories in the two, and I'm of the opinion that "megafauna" is too general a term to merge it under. Mzyxptlk 11:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC) I also DISAGREE Ornithomimus 01:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hyperdisease and dogs

This seems to have been going back and fourth for a while. I agree that hyperdisease is (in my view) a fairly marginal hypothesis, however I don't know of a source which says that or something similar, so I am uncomfortable saying so in the article (per WP:OR). I am likewise uncomfortable saying it is well recieved. Canine distemper spread through domestic dogs has been suggested, however it needs to be well cited and our discussion be limited to the material which is found in the published literature. I made some changes to the article, but I think it can be improved. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker 06:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Climate change

I removed the following from the section on climate shifts:

One tentative answer is that a nearby supernova altered the galactic environment and as a consequence exaggerated the climatic perturbation. It will require data from space research to advance this claim beyond speculation.

Is there any reliable source which makes this claim? It is a new one on me. --TeaDrinker 00:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images, Hungarian

Definitely consider adding images from the Hungarian Wikipedia:

http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleisztoc%C3%A9n_megafauna —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.53.120.160 (talk) 04:30, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Megafauna and Legend

This entire section needs extensive citations. A lot of it is, I suspect, apocryphal, and the language use is flowery and more like a narrative "just so story" than a researched encyclopedia article.--Leperflesh 00:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)