Ever wondered why land animals today so small? Fossils showed us that many dinosaurs were huge and massive beasts, and over millions of years they became only more. And modern mammals, on the contrary, very small. Elephants — big, Yes, but it’s the exception. Who is to blame? Of course, people.
The fact that people continue to kill large animals.
Why do all animals so small?
A new study conducted by a group of researchers from several American universities, explained that the people — that’s the main reason why modern animals are tiny compared to the animals of the past. The study was published in Science.
“On Earth were the animals weighing more than 10 tons,” says Felisa Smith, paleoecology from the University of new Mexico and co-author of the study. “Today, the largest animal is the elephant, which weighs on average three times less. And if they die, will not remain animals weighing more than 900 pounds. And this is the maximum size. If you look at the average size much smaller.”
After the dinosaurs the earth was wandering large creatures such as woolly rhinos, mastodon and giant sloths the size of an elephant. These are examples of the “megafauna” began to evaporate just at the same time, when human ancestors came out of Africa. Scientists have linked the large-scale extinction of large mammals and the emergence of the ancestors of the people with insatiable appetites.
Sadly, this trend is not going to stop. Perhaps we will gradually destroy all the animals leaving only the smallest, which are voracious person case no.
“If we don’t do this on Earth will be nothing more cows,” says Smith. “Depressing”.
It turns out that people killed all the large mammals (and are not going to stop)
Ilya Hel