What are Megafauna?
Megafauna is an informal term for large animals, especially very large animals like elephants and hippos. The threshold for an animal to be “megafauna” is variously defined as 44 kg (97 lb), 100 kg (220 lb), and 250 kg (551 lb). Sometimes, megafauna is divided into three categories: “small” (250–500 kg, 551-1102 lb), medium (500–1,000 kg, 1102-2204 lb), and large (over 1,000 kg/2204 lb). Intuitively, it seems that megafauna includes animals significantly larger than humans, including cows and horses. The term megafauna is especially popular for describing the numerous large Pleistocene species that went extinct due to hunting or otherwise competing with humans — dire wolves, short-faced bear, mammoth, moa, saber-toothed tiger, etc. It may refer to Pleistocene (1.8 million to 10,000 years BP) animals that went extinct in the last couple million years or so — ground sloths, megalodon shark, “terror birds,” etc., or more generally, any large animals in Earth’s history. The Pleistocene was
