Researchers have found extra evidence concerning the disappearance of the giant creatures - Phorusrhacids, colloquially known as "terror birds". Thus, the vanishing of these birds and other Australian megafauna members is associated with the settlement of the mainland by Aborigines that occurred about 45 thousand years ago.
Thousands of years ago the territory of Australia was inhabited by pretty unusual animals. There, for example, lived a giant bird - Genyornis newtoni, the growth of which exceeded two meters and 200 kg in weight. You could also explore very exotic mammals in that part of the world, such as Zygomaturus.
These massive animals were comparable in size to the pygmy hippopotamus.
For a long time, scientists believed that the primary reason for the birds' extinction was the impact of severe climate change
Scientists were trying to figure out what provoked the Extinction of Australian megafauna for decades. In recent years, there is growing evidence to suggest that the "killer" of giant birds and other mammal species were Australian Aborigines. The scientific studies showed that the natives used to eat eggs of Genyornis, thereby reducing the bird population. To do this, the researchers examined the eggs shells found in two thousand locations, in different areas of Australia. The analysed shell was partially blackened and cooking eggs at different temperatures is supposed to be the main reason for that.
And recently, representatives of the University of Colorado at Boulder (USA) - Gifford Miller and his colleagues have found other evidence with regard to that issue. The scientists analysed sediments at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, which is adjacent to Australia's south-west coast. The focus of the researchers was Sporormiella - a genus of fungi, spores that lived in the faeces of ancient animals.
As it turned out, spores disappeared from the sediments at about 40 thousand years ago - about the same time when the natives initially settled the continent. At the same time, as the researchers have detected, the Australian flora during this period had not experienced significant changes.
All this is indicative of the fact that humans are responsible for the death of "terror birds" and many other large animals. Scientists suggest that natives hunted juveniles. Calculations also show that in this case, the complete destruction of species was possible over several hundred years.
