Humans 'off the hook' for African mammal extinction
Source: BBC
Humans 'off the hook' for African mammal extinction
22 November 2018
New research has disputed a longstanding view that early humans helped wipe out many of the large mammals that once roamed Africa.
Today, Africa broadly has five species of massive, plant-eating mammal; but millions of years ago there were many more types of giant herbivore.
Why so many types vanished is not known, but many experts have blamed our tool-using, meat-eating ancestors.
Now, researchers say the mammal decline began long before humans appeared.
Writing in the journal Science, Tyler Faith, from the Natural History Museum of Utah, and colleagues argue that long-term environmental change drove the extinctions.
This mainly took the form of an expansion of grasslands, in response to falling atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂
levels.
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Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46306622