EA11 Outlying islands were hit even harder, though several thousand years later. Seven thousand years ago, Cuba lost all its megafauna including giant sloths. Four thousand years ago, the last mammoths were lost from an island off the coast of Siberia. Within two thousand years, Madagascar lost all of its megafauna including giant lemurs, two species of hippopotamus and a giant elephant bird unique to that island. Less “massive” non-mammalian extinctions are represented by the loss of the flightless birds, Moa (New Zealand, less than a thousand years ago) and the dodo (Mauritis Island, 300 years ago, clubbed to extinction by sailors).
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 05:12:45 +0000