Re: The Killers of Oz

[Mark Hallett <marksabercat@yahoo.com>]

I believe that the "poor soil" hypothesis also is
questionable in light of palnological evidence showing
that until mid to late Miocene times, Australia
apparently had lush forests on a continental scale.
(Vickers-Rich et al, AUSTRALIA'S LOST WORLD: The
Prehistoric Animals of Australia)

--Mark Hallett (a former Australian who evolved in the
Atherton Tableland of Qsld.)


--- Colin McHenry <cmchenry@westserv.net.au> wrote:
> Because Steve is no doubt too modest to tell us
> himself, this article was spotted in the Sydney
> Morning Herald today.  The associated Proc. Roy.
> Soc. paper apparently came out yesterday.
> 
> Cheers
> Colin
> 
> **********************************
> Killers in our midst millennia ago
> By Deborah Smith, Science Editor
> April 28, 2004
> 
> URL:
>
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/27/1082831569778.html
> 
> The online edition of The Sydney Morning Herald
> brings you updated local and world news, sports
> results, entertainment news and reviews and the
> latest technology information.
> 
>
******************************************************************
> 
> It was a simple, compelling idea: that Australia's
> poor soil led to a 
> stunting of the size and diversity of our ancient
> animals.
> 
> But the influential theory, popularised by Tim
> Flannery in his 1994 best 
> seller, The Future Eaters, is wrong, Sydney
> researchers say.
> 
> By comparing our continent with South America during
> the past 25 million 
> years, a team led by Stephen Wroe, of the University
> of Sydney, has 
> shown Australia had more than its fair share of big,
> fierce, meat-eating 
> mammals, given its size and isolation.
> 
> "A generation of students have been misinformed.
> Australians should no 
> longer be taught that theirs is a biologically
> stunted land that 
> produced a diminished fauna," Dr Wroe said.
> 
> Killer mammals had been rare on all continents, with
> only 45 big kinds 
> existing on the planet during the past 65,000 years,
> he said.
> 
> "But more than 10 per cent of them were furry,
> sharp-toothed 
> Australians, despite Australia only taking up about
> 6 per cent of the 
> world's land surface area."
> 
> The carnivores that called Australia home millennia
> ago included six 
> species of killer kangaroo, 13 kinds of thylacine
> and eight species of 
> marsupial "lions".
> 
> The study, published yesterday in the Proceedings of
> the Royal Society, 
> concluded that Australia's small size and long
> isolation were the main 
> forces that shaped the evolution of its unique
> creatures.
> 
> Dr Wroe said Dr Flannery's idea about the overriding
> importance of poor 
> soil quality was appealing. "But it has never really
> been backed up by 
> hard science." This was partly because the idea was
> hard to test.
> 
> Dr Flannery, director of the South Australian
> Museum, said the study 
> provided "interesting new information" but had not
> tackled the question 
> of soil quality in South America. "It seems a bit
> short."
> 
> His mind had not been changed, he said, but debate
> was the way science 
> advanced. "The worse outcome is that your theory
> gets ignored, because 
> then you have contributed nothing."
> 
> The Sydney team made use of a "great natural
> experiment" - the fact 
> that, before South America crashed into North
> America 3 million years 
> ago, it had been like Australia for tens of millions
> of years - an 
> isolated island populated by strange marsupials.
> 
> The team found that the diversity and size of
> meat-eaters were similar 
> in the southern continents for 22 million years
> before South America was 
> no longer isolated.
> 
> -- 
> *****************
> Colin McHenry
> School of Environmental and Life Sciences (Geology)
> University of Newcastle
> Callaghan NSW 2308
> Tel: +61 2 4921 5404
> Fax: + 61 2 4921 6925
> 
> ******************
> Colin McHenry & Sarah Johnston
> 14 Summer Place
> Merewether Heights  NSW 2291
> +61 2 4963 2340
> mob: 0423 081683
> 
> cmchenry@westserv.net.au
> Colin.Mchenry@newcastle.edu.au
> 
> 
> 
> 



        
                
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