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Megafauna demise blamed on humans

  • 23-06-2009 9:27am
    #1
    Manuk
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17 ✭


    An article on the bbc website about the role of humans in the demise of 'Megafauna', back in the day. Confirms my misanthropic belief that humans are a virus on this planet! Not you guys, though, the other guys :-)

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8112885.stm


Comments

  • #2
    Galvasean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    That's a pretty clever way of figuring out an extinct animal's lifestyle (microwear analysis). I wonder could the same technique be used on megafauna on other continents (and indeed creatures from other time periods) to the same end.
    Although if we are to err on the side of caution, I wonder could such research perhaps be corrupted during the process of fosilisation and if so, what measures are in place to negate such corruption?


  • #3
    Manuk
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17 ✭Manuk


    Galvasean wrote: »
    That's a pretty clever way of figuring out an extinct animal's lifestyle (microwear analysis). I wonder could the same technique be used on megafauna on other continents (and indeed creatures from other time periods) to the same end.
    Although if we are to err on the side of caution, I wonder could such research perhaps be corrupted during the process of fosilisation and if so, what measures are in place to negate such corruption?

    Presumably the food sources (i.e.: plants or animals) would also be fossilised, so we could observe the effects of fossilisation on them independently from the deposited amounts on various animals' teeth, no?

    Sounds like the technique could be applied generally, could yield some interesting results!


  • #4
    Galvasean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Sure enough, similar research has been done on dinosaurs.
    the scratches reveal that the movements of hadrosaur teeth were complex and involved up and down, sideways and front to back motion. According to Paul Barrett palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum 'this shows that hadrosaurs did chew, but in a completely different way to anything alive today. Rather than a flexible lower jaw joint, they had a hinge between the upper jaws and the rest of the skull. As they bit down on their food the upper jaws were forced outwards, flexing along this hinge so that the tooth surfaces slid sideways across each other, grinding and shredding food in the process.

    Full article here.


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