Perhaps they disappeared because climates changed. But they had survived previous ice ages, so it is hard not to think that humans, with their increasingly sophisticated hunting methods, may have tipped them over the edge. The chronology supports this explanation. In Australia, Siberia, and North America, the megafauna vanished not long after the arrival of humans. Perhaps, like the dodo in Mauritius, the megafauna didn’t fear our ancestors enough, unlike African megafauna, which had coevolved with humans and knew how dangerous we could be. In any case, megafauna, like all large animals
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