Genyornis omelettes

[Ian Thomas]

Not a smoking gun. Just a pile of eggshells - cooked.
I s'pose if big birds were slow breeders then picking off their eggs might have helped do'em in. But then ostriches and emus are still around and natives eat their eggs.

Humans drove ancient Australian megafauna to extinction, study finds
by Susanna Pilny, January 29, 2016
www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113412310/humans-drove-ancient-australian-megafauna-to-extinction-study-finds-012916/


Human predation contributed to the extinction of the Australian megafaunal bird Genyornis newtoni ~47?ka
www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160129/ncomms10496/full/ncomms10496.html

[Surroundx]

Can you clarify the differential findings of this study and the recent one by Grellett-Tinner at al.?

[Ian Thomas]

Jan 30, 2016 17:19:43 GMT 10 Surroundx said:

Can you clarify the differential findings of this study and the recent one by Grellett-Tinner at al.?

I'm not sure exactly what the discrepancy between Grellett-Tinner's Wrong Eggs Paper means for the Omelettes Paper but I'm pretty sure it'll be nothing good.

They give a wrap on the Conversation ...

New analysis finds no evidence that climate wiped out Australia’s megafauna
January 29, 2016
theconversation.com/new-analysis-finds-no-evidence-that-climate-wiped-out-australias-megafauna-53821

Then unbelievably (!!!), down in the comments, one of the authors appears to concede they still don't know what kind of egg they had!

Matthew McDowell
In reply to Frédérik Saltré

Great article Fred! But given a recent paper (www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027737911530192X) shows the eggs analysed by Miller et al. were laid by a giant megapode rather than Genyornis, do you still think it provides evidence of causation?


Frédérik Saltré
In reply to Matthew McDowell

This is a very interesting question Matt!To be honest I could not say whether or not the eggs were laid by Genyornis. Both arguments look convincing to me but I am far from my zone of expertise, so I let the experts debate about Genyornis' and Progura’s eggs. However, my understanding is that eggshells studied by Miller et al, are still a proof of human impact, whatever the name you put on them. So I’d say yes, it still provides some evidences of human pressure on giant species.

[Koonwarra]

Who gives a tinkers cuss anyhow?
Either the incoming abo's ate a giant emu or they ate a giant mallee fowl.
They had to eat something.

Therefore they had some influence on the long term survival of the species.

[Ian Thomas]

Yeah but one thing with humans dunnit theories is humans, as in our ancestors, probably did not hunt, kill and eat other human cousin-species. Well, probly we did sometimes, but not enough to make a difference. Not routinely.

Yet they went extinct and we're still here ... how come?

[Koonwarra]

Whether humans ate other humans has little bearing on whether humans ate megafauna, to the point of causing their extinction.
Next time you go to New Zealand, have a look at the piles of Moa shells and bones in the Maori middens.
www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/why-did-new-zealands-moas-go-extinct

[dennisw]

Maybe we have been under utilising our fauna