References & Sources

The Killing Fields Full Text
What robbed the Americas of their most charismatic mammals?

Humans may have killed off most of the hemisphere’s large mammals at the end of the last ice age.

References:

MacPhee, R.D.E. 1999. Extinctions in Near Time. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers: New York.

Sears, K., and J. Alroy. 1999. The geography if end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinction in South America: Massive overkill in the tropics? Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. October. Denver.

Further Readings:

FAUNMAP Working Group: Graham, R.W., E.L. Lundelius Jr., et al. 1996. Spatial response of mammals to late quaternary environmental fluctuations. Science 272(June 14):1601.

Monastersky, R, 1999. Ancient people sparked die-offs down under. Science News 155(Jan. 9):21.

Further information on the American extinctions is available at the American Museum of Natural History at: http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/IntroSymposiumFS.html.

Sources:

John Alroy
University of California, Santa Barbara
NCEAS
735 State Street
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Anthony D. Barnosky
University of California, Berkeley
Department of Integrative Biology
Museum of Paleontology
Berkeley, CA 94720

Ernest L. Lundeluis Jr.
University of Texas at Austin
Department of Geological Sciences
Austin, TX 78712

Ross D.E. MacPhee
American Museum of Natural History
Department of Mammalogy
CPW, 79th Street
New York, NY 10024

Karen Sears
University of Chicago
Committee on Evolutionary Biology
1025 East 57th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

From Science News, Vol. 156, No. 23, December 4, 1999, p. 360. Copyright © 1999, Science Service.