Why did Sabre Tooth Tigers and Woolly Mammoths go extinct?
Sabre tooth tigers and woolly mammoths were part of the Pleistocene megafauna (=very large animals), a fascinating assemblage of animals that has no present equivalent. They’re believed to have gone extinct for a combination of factors, including: – climate change, – disease, – altered habitat condition (human populatins were already there, and among other things, they initiated huge fires that modified their habitatt), – breakdown of food webs – hunting by humans (this is known as the “overkill hypothesis”) Remember that all these are hypotheses about what happened based on available evidence, mathematical modeling, and some assumptions that may not be correct. The debate continues, and considering that living systems are complex systems, it’s probable that these factors combined to result in the extinction of these animals. It’s also probable that the relative importance of different factors was different in different areas of the world. At least here where I live (Argentina), the le
