Talk:Australian megafauna

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portal	Australian megafauna is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

Bah - think I've been mixing in pre-"megafauna" fauna. E.g. Dromornis was probably extinct 4 MY ago? and Palorchestes even earlier?

Should 'megafauna' be defined as species which survived to the last ice age? And became extinct maybe 40,000 years ago? Then would need to split page into 'megafauna' and 'pre-megafauna'?

'megafauna' means 'big animals', basically. Dinosaurs were megafauna. If you want to narrow down the definition, you might use geologic era/epoch/age as a signifier. Or, maybe a particular animal family or order, such as 'mammalian megafauna'. --Leperflesh 21:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Role of man 2 PC 3 Pleistocene megafauna 4 Extinct species list 5 Marsupial Lion 6 Megafaunal Exctinction in Australia

[edit] Role of man

Everywhere that man appeared outside of Africa, there were large scale extinctions. I really wonder why man's role is so debated. IMHO, it is quite obvious, and it is still going on.--Wiglaf 09:08, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The issue is that, scientifically, correlation is not causation. Clearly the spread of humanity worldwide is positively correlated with the decline and extinction of megafauna worldwide. However, actual evidence for human-caused extinction is lacking. We know humans in North America hunted and ate Mastodons, but we cannot prove that this caused or even assisted their extinction. I think it's reasonable to guess that humanity caused many or most megafauna extinctions, but it is not a factual statement to say that this is true. See the Pleistocene megafauna page for a good example of how to accurately represent this correlation without overstating it.--Leperflesh 21:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a slight correction: correlation is, in essence, causation when the other variables are accounted for. Not all other variables have been accounted for everywhere, but they're increasingly being narrowed down. Esn 06:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Science is not about proving things. The said correlation is pretty damn good evidence of what we've done. I don't wonder, though, why this is so debated. Admission of guilt leads to the expectation that we change our ways. Changing of our ways leads to the reduction of our profits. Jɪmp 07:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PC

How about with the arrival of man instead of Aborigines. Aborigines in this context doesn't make sense to me.  freshgavin TALK   03:03, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

The context should have been dabbed to Australian Aborigines anyway, but I think you're right - man works better in context. --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

PC - Polite and correct. I'm changing it. Fred.e 13:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pleistocene megafauna

Should this page fold in to, or be related to or in a heirarchy with, Pleistocene megafauna? --Leperflesh 00:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

This page is mentioned on Pleistocene megafauna.--Peta 00:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Extinct species list

The linkification of species listed is inconsistent: in many cases, the exact species is linked, while in others, only the genus is linked. Obviously this has been done to create operating links, where no species page has been created: however, the inconsistency is bad, and one cannot know if a given species page will be created in the near future. I think we should either link to the genus in all cases, or to the species in all cases, or both (a link for each of the two words), consistently. --Leperflesh 22:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Marsupial Lion

Great show on Nova (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bonediggers/thylacoleo.html) about Thylacoleo carnifex. It should be added to this page. --Leperflesh 22:07, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Megafaunal Exctinction in Australia

Should a new section relating to Megafaunal Extinction in Australia be added to this article? It woud make a some sense, since Australia lost 90% of its megafaunal species in the Pleistocene. I'm rather new to the world of Wikipedia, so I'm not sure on how to work on a new section, but I would propose a few people collaborating to write the new section, corresponding via email, rather than simply posting a poorly prepared brief section. I would happily contribute my time to writing the section, but I'm a bit short of time at the moment, as I am currently completing tear 12. I would also be wary about posting on a such a hotly disputed topic without expert contribution. Is there an Australian paleontologist in the house?

T.carnifex (talk) 10:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think such a section would be fine. but please add good references.--Altaileopard (talk) 14:58, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have access to several journal articles reating to the subject. Finding reliable references should be no trouble. A few of them are already referenced for various other reasons. T.carnifex (talk) 23:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)