[E346]Giant Bird Driven Extinct by Egg-Eating Humans
Giant Bird Driven Extinct by Egg-Eating Humans
By Karen Hopkin
on February 9, 2016
Extinction. When species go bye-bye forever, we usually blame things like climate change[气候变化], volcanic eruption[火山爆发] or asteroid impact[小行星撞击]. But for the giant flightless birds that once roamed[漫步;漫游;游荡;闲逛] the Australian outback[澳大利亚的内陆地区], it was an omelet station what did ‘em in. A new study finds evidence that about 47,000 years ago, humans helped to wipe out this avian[鸟的,鸟类的] leviathan[庞然大物;巨无霸] by collecting and cooking its eggs. The study is in the journal Nature Communications. [Gifford Miller et al, Human predation[人类捕食] contributed to the extinction of the Australian megafaunal[巨型(土壤)动物] bird Genyornis newtoni ~47 ka]
Before humans swept over the land down under[<口>澳大利亚或新西兰], animals of enormous proportions were not uncommon. A two-ton wombat[袋熊], a thousand-pound kangaroo[袋鼠], and a 500-pound bird now known as Genyornis newtoni were spread across the continent. But most of these so-called megafauna[巨型(土壤)动物] disappeared once humans hit the scene[=come on the scene露面,出场].
Coincidence? Well, it could be. Which is why researchers set out to look for proof that human predation[人类捕食] played a role in the demise[终止;消亡;死亡] of Genyornis. (Which only coincidentally sounds like ginormous[特大的,极大的].)
They collected eggshells[蛋壳] from hundreds of sites around the country. And they found that the shell fragments[壳碎片] exhibited scorch marks[烧焦的痕迹] that suggested that the eggs had been purposefully cooked over an open flame[明火]. Marks that were not consistent with the eggs getting, say, burned up in a wildfire.
Three different dating methods[测年方法] put the eggs’ age in the correct era, and thus place the smoking gun[确凿的证据]—or in this case, firepit—directly in the hands of hungry humans. Which suggests that our ancestral appetite[我们祖先的胃口/口味/嗜好] for over-easy compromised the fitness of this species. Ultimately leading to its egg-stinction.
—Karen Hopkin
From 60-Second Science