This article is about living or extinct large animals. For other uses, see Megafauna (disambiguation).
The African bush elephant (foreground), Earth's largest extant land mammal, and the Masai ostrich (background), one of Earth's largest extant birds
In zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The most common thresholds to be a megafauna are weighing over 45 kg (99 lb) or weighing over 1,000 kg (2,200 lb). The first occurrence of the term was in 1876. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs, mammals and other vertebrates experienced an expansion in size. Millions of years of evolution led to gigantism on every major land mass. During the Quaternary extinction event, many species of megafauna went extinct as part of a slowly progressing extinction wave that affected ecosystems worldwide.
In practice, the most common usage encountered in academic and popular writing describes land mammals roughly larger than a human that are not (solely) domesticated. The term is especially associated with the Pleistocene megafauna – the land animals that are considered archetypical of the last ice age, such as mammoths, the majority of which in northern Eurasia, Australia-New Guinea and the Americas became extinct within the last forty thousand years.
zoology, megafauna (from Greek μέγας megas "large" and Neo-Latin fauna "animal life") are large animals. The most common thresholds to be a megafauna are weighing...
Charismatic megafauna are animal species that are large—in the relevant category that they represent—with symbolic value or widespread popular appeal...
The term Australian megafauna refers to the megafauna in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch. Most of these species became extinct during the latter...
body masses over 44 kilograms (97 lb)) animal species (the Pleistocene megafauna), which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity across...
(500–1,000 kg (1,100–2,200 lb)) and large (over 1,000 kg (2,200 lb)). Megafauna often form one of the mythemes of a story. The narrative may revolve around...
The following is a list of megafauna discovered by science since the beginning of the 19th century (with their respective date of discovery). Some of...
bush, or tree). Deep-sea gigantism Island tameness Insular dwarfism Megafauna Pleistocene extinctions The reduction in predation on islands often also...
the reintroduction of extant Pleistocene megafauna, or the close ecological equivalents of extinct megafauna. It is an extension of the conservation practice...
became extinct soon after first human settlement, including the Australian megafauna; others have disappeared since European settlement, among them the thylacine...
wiped out megafauna Thylacoleo - Australia's Marsupial Lion Thylacoleo in Pleistocene Australia Steve Wroe's Web Page: Australian Megafauna Western Australian...
the foremost authority of his time on other marsupials and Australian megafauna, which were enigmatic to European science. Diprotodon is the largest-known...
American Megafauna is a board game on the topic of evolution designed by Phil Eklund, and published by Sierra Madre Games in 1997. While the game is not...
stressed the megafauna to the point of extinction. Some scientists favor abrupt climate change as the catalyst for the extinction of the megafauna at the end...
size of many of the taxa. Megafauna are large animals of any particular region or time. For example, Australian megafauna. Meiofauna are small benthic...
still existed, the synapsid amniotes evolved the first truly terrestrial megafauna (giant animals) in the form of pelycosaurs, such as Edaphosaurus and the...
the producers of the Clovis culture were reliant on hunting big game (megafauna), having the strongest association with mammoth, mastodon and bison, alongside...
2013-12-02. Turvey, Samuel (2013). "Holocene survival of Late Pleistocene megafauna in China: a critical review of the evidence". Quaternary Science Reviews...
Gibson, L. (2011). "A conservation success story in the otherwise dire megafauna extinction crisis: The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) of Gir forest"...
carcass and bone associated with the hunting and scavenging of Pleistocene megafauna. Compared with modern wolves, some Pleistocene wolves showed an increase...
considered a part of the Australian megafauna, its body mass excludes it from most formal definitions of megafauna. It is better described as a more robust...
Giant animal may refer to: Megafauna, the largest animal species Megafauna (mythology), large animals in mythology Gigantism in animals Largest organisms...
variety of other species, including as many as 174 species of marine megafauna. Mangrove plants require a number of physiological adaptations to overcome...
climate change,: p. 16021 contributed to extinctions of late Pleistocene megafauna, and resulted in the disappearance of the Clovis culture. The Comet research...
contain 10% of Earth's species. 83% of South America's large mammals (megafauna) became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene around 11,000 years ago...
people. The tiger is among the most popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It has been kept in captivity since ancient times and has been trained...
Kolyma river area in eastern Siberia in association with many Ice Age megafauna that would later coexist with Ovibos, in the Kolyma itself and elsewhere...
Paleoindians were hunter-gatherers that roamed in bands and frequently hunted megafauna. Several cultural stages, such as Archaic (c. 8000–1000 BC) and the Woodland...
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