I knew horses were brought over in the 1500s, but I didn’t realize they had previously been here! I wonder what the primary cause for extinction was- climate? Disease? Predators?
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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Homo sapien expansion after the last glacial maximum is a strong contender, but my understanding is that we don't yet have enough data to rule out environmental changes, or sufficient resolution to really prove it was us.
The most convincing argument I've heard points out that Africa - where we evolved - has more surviving mega-fauna than any other continent. If animals who had more evolutionary time to develop strategies for coping with humans are way more likely to survive, that strongly suggests we played a large role.
It's an area of ongoing research without a definitive answer though.
Not only had they previously been here, they evolved here first and migrated out through Siberia when it still connected the continents.
The interesting part is that they evolved in America, crossed over to Asia (and from there to Europe and Africa) through the Bering land bridge, and then went extinct in America together with the American megafauna (possibly because of overexploitation by recently arrived humans, possibly due to climate change, possibly a combination of both), only to be reintroduced later on.
The usual reason, probably.
So death?
People. The secret ingredient is people. Pretty much any large species of mammal (or bird) that went extinct in the past 10.000 years or so was hunted to extinction.
Environmental changes. Got it.
I mean I guess everything is an environmental change. Meteor does are just a very rapid environmental change. Bullets: highly localized change in environment.
My point is that humans hunting is barely a blipp on the radar on a larger scale. Like that time 70-80% of all species on this planet went extinct and people still argue about why.
People have this weird view of nature having equilibrium or balance. It never has and never will. Nature is constantly changing whether we are here or not. We mostly notice when our prey animals die out.
Definitely people think nature is an equilibrium when it's actually very dynamic.
But also humans change their environments a lot. Even North America's first nations.
We had some camels too! I don't know how close they were to what we think of as camels today, but apparently they were closer to Eurasian camels than to South American species life llama or alcapas.
North America also had Cheetahs (called Miracinonyx), which is why Pronghorns are so fast. No current predator can chase one down. They are over-built now.
but recent studies suggest that it was not specialized in chasing like the cheetah was since it retained retractable claws that would have crippled its ability to run fast. Instead, it was more closely related to the cougar, and at least M. trumani might have employed a hunting behavior that has no modern analogues, suggesting that it running fast like the cheetah is a common misconception
From your link
Yes, I read that after posting the link. That is new info to me. I previously read that the existence of pronghorns, with their massive speed/acceleration, was evidence that this cheetah likely was fast as well, as they wouldn't have need to evolve that speed without a predator putting pressure on them to do so. This contradicts that somewhat.
As someone who used to go pronghorn hunting with my drunk uncles, they still have one predator.
We prefer to be called "drunkels". Thank you.
Horses are an invasive species.
To Eurasia yes. To North America no.
Strike that, reverse it.
They literally evolved in North America, and when they went to Eurasia across the Bering land bridge they became an invasive species to Eurasia.
For a species to be invasive, it has to be transplanted rapidly by people into an ecosystem. Horses naturally and slowly made their own way to Eurasia and became extinct in the Americas, until they were suddenly brought back to the Americas by the Spanish ... making them invasive.
Lol no it doesn't need to be by people.
invasive species noun
Any species that has been introduced to an environment where it is not native, and that has since become a nuisance through rapid spread and increase in numbers, often to the detriment of native species.
It can be by you know a land bridge like the bering land bridge that was not previously there.
Horses literally evolved in north america and are thus a native species to north america. They are not a native species to Eurasia and are thus an invasive species to eurasia.
At this point I think I'm going to say cheers.
I've heard some indigenous people say that horses never went extinct in North America pointing to the fact that although Spanish horses were released in NA in the 16th century, 17th century European explorers documented great plains tribes with advanced horse cultures which would be hard to attribute to a handful of releases from the 16th century expeditions.
In fairness it only took like 30 years to develop advanced car culture.
The utility of the horse and the breeding and lack of predators would’ve made them pervasive in no time.
Also, most existing indigenous civilisations had collapsed due to genocide and the diseases imported by the European invaders. It was literally a post-apocalyptic scenario. The survivors were basically Mad Maxing it, only cars hadn't been invented yet so they had to use horses.