Extinction of megafauna

Alright it’s time for another post guys. So I wanted to post about the extinction of the megafauna in the US hundreds of years ago.

Megafauna basically just big animals that weren’t dinosaurs. They were mostly large mammals like wooly rhinos, mammoths, land sloths, saber tooth’s, and more. So what was the cause for these giant land animals to be no more?

Professionals don’t know the full answer because they think it’s many things that caused it.

So one possible cause is over hunting. A lot of people hunted these animals for many things. Using the bones, fur, meat and other innards for a multitude of things. It was one of their main ways of getting food and other tools and such.

Another idea is climate change. The world was starting to heat up. The plants were shrinking and it was no longer viable for these large creatures to be eating the smaller plants. And with the heat other parts of the land was changing as well. In fact there is a well known site in Colorado where the land liquified and acted like cement and stopped a lot of mammoths and mastodons, making them starve to death because they couldn’t move. I don’t remember the name of the site but when I heard about it I thought it was cool. I think it’s around a skiing resort or something.

Well the debate is still on going but you can choose which one you think is more likely. I think it’s both. Most of this information came from professor Jason Labella at Colorado State University.