Wild Things:
Life as We Know It
Hungry snakes, giant kangaroos, bat noses, and more
- By Abby Callard, T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Ashley Luthern and Sarah Zielinski
- Smithsonian magazine, September 2009
(Michael Long / NHMPL)
After people first arrived in Australia 50,000 years ago, the giant kangaroo, Procoptodon goliah, became extinct. In a new study, researchers in Australia and the U.S. rule out climate change and fire as the cause: the seven-foot-tall marsupial ate shrubs that could withstand drought and burning. Instead, human hunters likely wiped out the creatures.
Additional Sources
"A water snake that predicts which way fish will turn when it attacks," by David F. Salisbury, June 18, 2009, Exploration, Vanderbilt University's Online Research magazine
"Tentacled snakes turn C-starts to their advantage and predict future prey behavior," Kenneth C. Catania, PNAS, July 7, 2009
"Extinction implications of a chenopod browse diet for a giant Pleistocene kangaroo," Gavin J. Prideaux et al., PNAS, July 14, 2009
"Acoustic Effects Accurately Predict an Extreme Case of Biological Morphology," Zhiwei Zhang et al., Physical Review Letters, July 14, 2009
"Leaf variegation in Caladium steudneriifolium (Araceae): a case of mimicry?" Ulf Soltau et al., Evolutionary Ecology, July 2009
"A risky defence by a spider using conspicuous decoys resembling itself in appearance," Ling Tseng and I-Min Tso, Animal Behaviour, June 28, 2009
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