PBS Discussions

NOVA scienceNOW4 · Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 50 Location: Boston

One of the enduring mysteries in paleontology is who or what killed off the mammoths, short-faced bears, giant ground sloths, and other so-called megafauna of North America. From 1.6 million to 10,000 years ago, the continent boasted a rich assortment of such "big animals." But around 11,000 years ago, most of them vanished. (Some, like the muskox, somehow managed to slip through the bottleneck.) Along with those mentioned above, saber-toothed cats, camels, mastodons, and many other big-bodied beasts disappeared; in geologic terms, it was essentially overnight. What do you think happened?

Etah · Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 3

For the mammoth mystery involving the skeletal remains of two mammoths interlocked together by their tusks, I was wondering if it might have been possible that they were conjoined somewhere together on their face. Though I'm not sure whether elephants and mammoths can and could have been born conjoined, that would also seem like a likely explanation for both of their deaths. One dies of old age or some other cause, and falls over, pulling the other one down with it. Would there be any way of knowing that? Maybe the tusks were shorter on one side because that was the side they always ate on? Maybe the bone broke from the fall? Maybe it broke earlier in their life due to a clumsiness caused by being conjoined? Sure it's a far-fetched idea, but the odds of the accepted cause of death are almost as slim to none in the likely hood of occurring as the one I proposed.