People, not climate change, may have deleted the giant Australia kangaroos

Australian kangaroo species attempt by 40,000 years ago may have had less to do with the dietary pressures caused by the climate and more with human hunters.

Dental analysis of ancient kangaroos find that they were not such eating that once thought, researchers report on January 10 Science. Instead, when it comes to climate -related changes in food availability, animals could have been wrapped in punches, scientists suggest.

Between 65,000 and 40,000 years ago, more than 90 percent of large animal species in Australia disappeared. Over half were kangaroo. The main suspects behind these disappearances were thought to be human hunters who had arrived somewhere between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, and rapid climate changes, which may have dramatically reduced animal dietary options.

But for Paleontologist Samuel Arman of the Museum and the Art Gallery of Northern Territory in Alice Springs, Australia and colleagues, the climate hypothesis did not make much sense, at least when it comes to Kangaroos. The animals had wet dramatic climate shifts before.

Australia’s kangaroos evolved between 20 million and 15 million years ago, when the continent was a lush rain forest. Up to 5 million years ago, the island was dried – however the kangaroos blossomed, diversified in new species and occupying numerous environmental shades that included a variety of diet.

To appreciate the possible role of dietary restrictions, Arman and colleagues analyzed the teeth of 937 kangaroos, both fossilized and modern, studying small signs of clothing and tearing showing what creatures ate.

Previous studies of fossilized skulls and jaws suggested that many ancient kangaroos consumed a limited diet of tough plants, compared to relatively versatile drugs of modern days. But the new dental analysis of the 12 ancient and 16 modern species suggest that long -term kangaroos were generalists, consuming a variety of foods that would help them survive while the climate changed. This, researchers say, tells of human hunters as the most likely priority culprit for animal breakdown.

It is not the first time that microwave dental analysis has questioned the dietary assumptions of ancient creatures – including people – collected only from cranial analysis, researchers say. This, they add, suggest that it is worth testing the teeth of other Pleistocene great mammals to find out really how specialized their diets were – and if the loss of those diets led to their destruction.