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What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

nautil.us

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Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#81

Post by djmips »

kleiba wrote: post #26

One idea I had a while back is this: with all our modern technology in stem cell research, gene modification and cloning, shouldn't it be possible to recreate actual living clones from prehistoric dinosaur DNA? I mean, sure, these giant wild animals could potentially become dangerous, but how about we confine them to a remote island or so?!

One thought I always had about reviving prehistoric animals is that I feel we've come to understand that animals live in a symbiotic relationship with microorganisms. Some even have specialized diets. Then there's the so called epigenetics. So besides the missing microbiota there may be other factors that are missing and can't easily be recreated.

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#82

Post by onlypassingthru »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #63
Salgat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the norm for invasive species. I imagine humans specifically concentrated on megafauna because, why not go after the single big easy-to-find animal that will feed your family for weeks?

To be fair it probably took some time to figure out methods to make mammoth steak last for weeks without refrigeration

Once humans figured out how to cook meat over a fire, it probably didn't take too long to figure out how to preserve meat using smoke and less heat.

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#83

Post by Detrytus »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #74
permo-w wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

rotting and aging are very different things. rotting is simply being consumed by fungus/bacteria, aging is a more complex process that involves controlling the liquid levels in the meat in order to make it last longer (wet aging) or taste better (dry aging)

I'd say not 'very different', just scale. 'Controlled' rotting. There are fungus and bacteria in the aging process, just the temperature and humidity is controlled. But, not sure of exact technical definition of 'rotting' is, or 'aging'. So we'd be debating different definitions. I'd say generally both have fungus and bacteria, and 'aging' is under controlled conditions, and 'rotting' is just out in out door environm…

Controlled temperature and humidity makes all the difference when it comes to the speed at which bacteria can multiply. Aged meat has many orders of magnitude less bacteria than rotten one.

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#84

Post by morkalork »

djmips wrote: post #81
kleiba wrote: post #26

One idea I had a while back is this: with all our modern technology in stem cell research, gene modification and cloning, shouldn't it be possible to recreate actual living clones from prehistoric dinosaur DNA? I mean, sure, these giant wild animals could potentially become dangerous, but how about we confine them to a remote island or so?!

One thought I always had about reviving prehistoric animals is that I feel we've come to understand that animals live in a symbiotic relationship with microorganisms. Some even have specialized diets. Then there's the so called epigenetics. So besides the missing microbiota there may be other factors that are missing and can't easily be recreated.

Coming from the other direction, there's a book about all the plants that were dependant on megafauna for processes like seed dispersal that are sorta hanging around still called "The Ghosts of Evolution".

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#85

Post by karaterobot »

defrost wrote: post #7

The linked nautil.us article is a one sided poor summary of what is still an ongoing debate with strong beliefs on either side. Two people are quoted: * Jens-Christian Svenning, director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere at Aarhus University. He’s also the lead author on a recent paper published in Cambridge Prisms: Extinction that argues it was not clima…

Thank you for saying this, I had the same thought. I am not a researcher in this area, but it's one I pay attention to, and I have not gotten the impression that the question is as settled as this article makes it seem.

Actually, what I should say is that I always read articles or watch videos that make it seem like a slam-dunk case from either side (human predation or climate change), which I interpret as a) signs of a contentious ongoing debate, and b) a suggestion that the real answer will be found to be a complicated interaction between these factors, and many others as well. As it is with most things, frankly.

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#86

Post by jzxy »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66
kjkjadksj wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair it probably took some time to figure out methods to make mammoth steak last for weeks without refrigeration

I was reading an article, some time ago, about Amazon Indians that actually like rotten meat. Apparently, it is quite nutritious, doesn't hurt them (maybe acquired immunity?), and is probably fairly easy to digest (it's halfway there, already). Scavenging spoiled meat is a fairly classic natural trait, and even apex predators won't pass up an easy snack.

>Scavenging spoiled meat is a fairly classic natural trait, and even apex predators won't pass up an easy snack.

It has to be said that humans in particular have stomach acidity on the levels of scavenger type meat eaters.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourn...

There's been a decent amount of research on the relation between stomach pH and diet, with animal species that have pronounced scavenger tendencies being on the lowest end of the spectrum, which puts an interesting light on the sort of diet the earliest humans may have had.

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#88

Post by Log_out_ »

slibhb wrote: post #56
xhkkffbf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my question: if humans caused megafauna extinction, why did this not happen in Africa? That's where many of the megafauna continue to live. But humans came from Africa.

The theory is that African megafauna evolved alongside humans, learned to fear them, and developed strategies to avoid them. Whereas other megafauna didn't, so when humans left Africa, they were defenseless.

And there is african extinct megafauna.for example the giant birds of madagascar whos giant eggshells inspired the bird roc in arabian folktales. I wouldnt be suprised if africa too is littered with human extinct megafauna which simply never had the reproductionrate or cleverness to keep up. Which is a great arg for the theory that one intelligent spezies breeds/uplifts all other creatures to intelligence.

Re: What Happened to Ancient Megafauna?

#89

Post by mrkstu »

lawlessone wrote: post #62
nkrisc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was there difference in hunter-gatherers in europe/asia/americas compared to africa? Why hadn't the ancient elephants, giraffes, etc been hunted to extinction? Consider that African megafauna have co-existed with early hominids and eventually humans for millions of years. They may have simply adapted to human predation successfully enough to survive, as one factor. Whereas in North America and elsewhere you have th…

>Consider that African megafauna have co-existed with early hominids It is this imho Animals in Africa are more scared by the sounds of people than lions. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/october/human-voice... And the bigger ones like Hippos are hyper aggressive to humans, allegedly they kill more people than any other African animal.

Interesting though, that seemingly unlike North America's Mammoths and Mastodon's, African Elephants never became a concentrated target for hunting enough to be driven into extinction.

Though that may just argue that they were unable to adapt to climate change in NA fast enough rather than being hunted to extinction.

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