Many of the giant marsupials and birds that roamed ancient Australia had vanished by 40,000 years ago. While the duration and drivers of these extinctions remain debated, fossils clearly show the continent lost a host of creatures which would have dwarfed humans, such as short-faced kangaroos, diprotodons, “thunder birds” and giant goannas.
Our study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests these end-Pleistocene extinctions also affected smaller creatures such as lizards. These animals comprise most of biodiversity and biomass.
