wolly mammoths - news story (Dec/16/2007 )
so, according to this article, it was trees that "did in" the woolly mammoths.
does anyone else think there is more to the study that this paper is letting on?
the mammoths probably survived quite a few ice age cycles, and there would have been changes in the vegetation during those. so why didn't they die in a earlier cycle? could it be because there were humans around (who had invented a stick with a pointy thing on the end?)?
Why do paleontologists try to find a unique cause to such a big event in evolution? There are an awful lot of species that have not made it to the next age.. and the retreat of the grass land may not explain everything, in my opinion. So, probably the advance of the forest contributed to the disappearance of the wooly mammoth, but the change in climate, the rising of the man, and even maybe meteorites all helped in the process.
Don't you think that trees would grow at a fairly slow rate, and that having a herd of mammoths trampling all over the small seedlings might do them some damage? Maybe the good doctor has a new book coming out???
Think african elephant. They eat trees, kill trees and keep the savana open.
Think Indian and pygmy elephants both species live in forest relatively comfortably.
And even if that was true (the tree did it), why don't we have mammoth in the steps? Nice sea of rolling grasslands.
Something happened at the close of the ice age.
I don't think a simple answer like this could actually have spelled the end for the great mammoth and all rest of the ice age mega fauna. I wonder if mammoth physiology could also have played a part? (aside from human predation/who perhaps also caused direct habitat destruction) and changing enviroment.
i preferred perneseblue's post
it was more intereting than that article. it does sound like someone is drumming up some pblicity for a book.
That is sooo not right.........