A new study challenges conventional thinking about what drove the extinction of megafauna.
Articles on Megafauna
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A new study rewrites our understanding of the iconic marsupial’s history in Australia.
Australia doesn’t have any ‘kill sites’. In fact, there’s no hard evidence people hunted the megafauna.
Paleoecologist Emily Lindsey on the wildfires that led to mass extinction during California’s Ice Age. Listen to The Conversation Weekly.
Roughly 40,000 years ago, the short-faced cousins of modern kangaroos died out. The cause has been the subject of fierce debate.
Lauren Fuge visits the Flinders Ranges with the Adnyamathanha owner-operator of an Indigenous cultural tourism centre. She asks: how did his people change the land, and how has it changed them?
A recent find of an ancient giant bird’s skull has revealed much about its life among the vanished lakes and wetlands of inland South Australia.
Finding and retrieving the bones of this extinct kangaroo relative – a ‘holy grail’ fossil – took hours of squeezing through narrow passages.
Some extinct kangaroos may barely have hopped at all.
Introduced water buffalo and camels trash native plants – don’t they? Our research shows megafauna herbivores have the same impact wherever they are.
A newly described fossil from South Australia is making waves in our understanding of where and when whales evolved titanic body sizes.
New findings from the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California suggest human-caused wildfires in the region, along with a warming climate, led to the loss of most of the area’s large mammals.
A forensic technique more often used at modern crime scenes identified blood residue from large extinct animals on spearpoints and stone tools used by people who lived in the Carolinas millennia ago.
Having special foot adaptations helped these sizeable animals wander long distances, which meant a better chance to find plentiful food and water.
Africa’s mammals are a global treasure that must be protected.
A puzzle over the identity of an extinct bird that laid eggs across Australia has been solved.
80,000 years ago, Australia’s landscape was dominated by much larger versions of today’s marsupials – including enigmatic and enormous wombats.
Polar bears and wolves may get the glory, but small predators like weasels, foxes and their cousins play outsized ecological roles. And many of these species are declining fast.
Our work provides new evidence against the theory that people living in Sahul drove the megafauna extinction.
The findings will help us better understand how biodiversity responds to a changing climate over time.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Vertebrate Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Professor, Palaeontology, Griffith University
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Professor of Wildlife Conservation, University of Tasmania
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Lecturer in Palaeontology, The University of Queensland
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Flinders University Palaeontology Laboratory, Flinders University
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Distinguished Professor, Charles Sturt University
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Associate Professor in Earth Sciences, University of Adelaide, University of Wollongong
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Professor, Flinders University
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Professor, Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre, UNSW
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Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Node Leader in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, Flinders University
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Distinguished Professor, School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National University
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Researcher, Flinders University
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Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Biogeography, Node & Stream Leader for ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures, University of Technology Sydney; Australian Museum
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Senior Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, Adelaide University