News – Why are the largest mammals in Africa extinct?

A new study found that early humans did not cause the extinction of Africa's largest mammals by hunting after learning how to produce tools and weapons.

The study indicates that the disappearance of forests and the elimination of grasslands due to climate change have led to the extinction of large mammals long before humans begin to feed themselves.

Climate change has led animals to be deprived of food and shelter, which means that they died millions of years ago, scientists said.

Africa still has the greatest diversity of large mammals, but this has not always been the case.

Almost 50,000 years ago, almost every continent on Earth was inhabited by a wide variety of organisms rivaling Africa's current diversity.

North America and Eurasia harbored ice age icons, such as mammoths and drip cats, while giant kangaroo and wombats swayed in remote areas from Australia and that gorilla-sized animals were spreading in the Malagasy forests.

However, these creatures have disappeared in the last 50,000 years, the Homo species spreading outside Africa and the world.

Extinction then took place in all regions of the world, with the exception of Africa, where most mammals have survived to this day.

But a new study suggests that long-term climate change has resulted in a 4.6 million year decrease in the mammal population of Africa.

"We believe our study is a master plan to understand the depth of human impacts on the presence of large mammals and to provide a compelling counter-argument to these complex viewpoints," said Tyler Feith, assistant professor at the University of Toronto. 39, University of Utah.

US researchers have compiled a record 7 million years of extinction in East Africa, focusing on the larger species, called "megaherbivores".

Although there are now only 5 "megaherbivores" in Africa, hippopotamuses, giraffes, elephants, white rhinos and black rhinos, the diversity has been much greater in the past.

The study was based on fossil remains in East Africa and on climate data, revealing over the last seven million years a massive extinction of "megaherbivores", where 28 species had disappeared, resulting in the lack of large animals in current societies.

The study was published in the journal Science.

Source: Daily Mail