megafauna
Quick Summary
Megafauna refers to animals of particularly large size, visible to the naked eye. This term often brings to mind extinct giants like mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths, which roamed the Earth during the Pleistocene Epoch.12
The end of the Pleistocene Epoch, roughly 11,000 years ago, saw the extinction of many of these large mammals. The exact causes of these megafaunal extinctions are still debated, with leading hypotheses including overhunting by early humans and abrupt climatic and environmental changes. While smaller animals were generally unaffected, the disappearance of these large creatures significantly altered ecosystems.2
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