Talk:Wood-pasture hypothesis

"Unbalanced" claim
1 February 2023, an "unbalanced" template has been placed above the article, with the reason given: "''An interesting page discussing the potential role of large herbivores in wood pastures in the European ecosystem. However, no source mentions the theory relying on Martin's old overkill theory. It is not proven that humans played a major role in the extinction of megafauna within Eurasia. Potentially, late Pleistocene warming and glacial retreats brought sudden changes leading to the extinct of various faunas with humans being potentially a secondary/tertiary role (see C3 vs C4 vegetation). Furthermore, the article while focusing on the European ecosystem attempts to extend its argument to the overkill hypothesis and extinction events in the Americas, which is unnecessary for the theory for the role of megaherbivores and reads more like a blame on human hunters, something that Vera may have not mentioned much. Article should only focus on European fauna, trying to extend to other continents is going offtopic."''

- While it is true that Vera himself does not discuss the pre-historical extictions of megafauna in length (something I made clear throughout the entry), research has lend support to his hypothesis especially in regard to earlier interglacials like the Eemian (Marine Isotope Stage 5e) and its megafauna. Therefore, I think it is adequate to mention the Pleistocene megafauna, their demise and the reasons discussed. I don't see how mentioning and roughly outlining both the most discussed hypotheses, climate change and human impact/hunting would give undue weight to either. Martin's hypothesis may be old (but much younger than the climate change hypothesis), but it is discussed in its variants as an explanation for the extinction of megafauna not just in the Americas, but also in Eurasia. Especially because of clear differences in extinction rates between the last glacial transition and earlier interlacials and the repeated temporal connection between the arrival of humans to a place and the disappearance of megafauna from that place. @PrimalMustelid

-AndersenAnders (talk) 18:01, 2 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for responding! Apologies for not responding sooner. I noticed that you made an edit regarding some of my feedback, and I can clarify my criticism of problems I think might need to be fixed. I reread the section "The baseline: Quaternary glacial cycles and the Quaternary extinction event" after having previously skimmed it, while I do think this time that the section gives fair weight to the late Pleistocene proposed extinction causes, I do still think that there are several problems to address:
 * You do mention the extinction of animals in Europe like the Elasmotherium. However, Elasmotherium only existed in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (so not Western and Central Europe) and went extinct by 39,000 years ago most likely due to environmental changes that caused it and only it to experience population bottlenecks as a result of total specialization in grazing as opposed to Coelodonta and Saiga that both were mixed feeders and both lived after its extinction. Humans perhaps could be a secondary factor for its extinction, but actual archeological evidence has been shaky especially since there's no proof that it's even portrayed in cave drawings. Its extinction causes would therefore be quite different from late Pleistocene-early Holocene extinction event in terms of habitat loss and dietary specialization (see "Evolution and extinction of the giant rhinoceros Elasmotherium sibiricum sheds light on late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions").
 * Something I like is that you address the temperate environment vs. the ice age environment that both normally coexisted in Europe during the Pleistocene, so props for that since it's a common misconception that only steppelike environments existed. However, the Palaeoloxodon-faunal assemblage became relatively unstable long before the late Pleistocene-early Holocene extinctions that resulted from the Last Glacial Maximum after its initial onset 20 ka. As you said, the Palaeoloxodon fauna was a temperate forest environment that was mostly associated with the Mediterranean area since they were already most likely extirpated from most of Europe due to environmental changes from the Eemian European Mammal Age. While Palaeoloxodon antiquus arguably survived into the Holocene and went extinct by the Last Glacial–Interglacial cycle similar to Mammuthus primigenius (likely lived last on islands), it most likely already went extinct from Europe 50-30k years ago due to the retreat and near disappearance of temperate woodlands whereas Mammuthus primigenius was unaffected due to living in open grasslands/steppes (see "The extinction of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) in Europe"). What I think needs more emphasis is the later temperate fauna that existed in Europe that we're familiar with, such as the recently extinct aurochs (Bos primigenius), wild boar (Sus scrofa), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), red deer (Cervus elaphus), moose (Alces alces), beaver (Castor fiber), European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), and pine marten (Martes martes). These contrast the steppe fauna, all of which, as a result of the retreat of the LGM, either were extirpated and never recovered beyond their modern range (the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), saiga (Saiga saiga), steppe pika (Ochotona pusilla), arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus), and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)) or went extinct during the late Pleistocene-early Holocene (Mammuthus primigenius, Panthera spelaea, and Coelodonta antiquitatis). Of course, there are exceptions, like the wolf and stoat that were adapted to both environments and faced population changes from the glacial retreat or the horse which faced declines from forest expansion but were later able to recolonize Northern Europe during the mid-Holocene and were later domesticated by humans. Megaloceros giganteus is another special exception where it was adapted to forest and woodland environments in Eurasia but went extinct likely due to environmental changes that, while theoretically allowing the quickly-adapting deer to take advantage of climate shifts, also brought trouble to it in the form of more specialized cervids being introduced to its range (see "Late Pleistocene and Holocene History of Mammals in Europe" and "Taxonomy, Systematics and Evolution of Giant Deer Megaloceros Giganteus (Blumenbach, 1799) (Cervidae, Mammalia) from the Pleistocene of Eurasia").
 * Also lions (Panthera leo) didn't go locally extinct during the late Pleistocene-early Holocene, it is a different species from the extinct Eurasian Panthera spelaea and North American Panthera atrox.
 * Stegodon coexisted with Elephas in Asia for most of the Pleistocene but most likely went extinct by ~12 ka due to less ecological flexibility in the former unlike the latter, in which the latter showed dietary shifts from C4 to C3 plants and was a mixed feeder while the former was consistently a C4 browser. It's unknown how much influence Homo sapiens could've had on habitat change (though I'd suspect not much), but either way, hunting pressure was likely not a cause of its extinction because the Asian elephant should've been long extinct otherwise (see "Ecological flexibility and differential survival of Pleistocene Stegodon orientalis and Elephas maximus in mainland southeast Asia revealed by stable isotope (C, O) analysis"). Today's Asian elephants are endangered, but that's because of modern habitat loss and poaching.
 * I'm no expert on Australian megafauna, so I won't describe them much, but they generally went extinct 50-40 ka, long before the extinctions resulting from the Last Glacial Retreat. Rather they went extinct likely due to aridification and human hunting/competition (food and water), although the extent of both are debated.
 * With these in mind, it's easy for casual readers to group extinctions into uniform extinction events, and this is never the optimal way to explain extinctions in general despite potentially similar causes depending on the period. What happened in Eurasia in terms of faunal turnover events are likely less severe in North America for instance or the other way around prehistorically.
 * So to clarify, yes, in Eurasia, contrary to Martin's overkill theory, mammals did already go extinct or face extirpations in different intervals even though the answer is not usually that simple for different genera/species. Even if some species did go extinct in the early Holocene, at least several species/genera had already faced population bottlenecks and loss of habitats for their dietary niches at prior glacial periods. It can be argued that humans could perhaps be an eventual secondary factor towards extinction, but Eurasian steppe fauna were severely affected by the retreat of the Last Glacial Maximum causing a retreat of steppe environments that it is difficult to argue that they weren't affected by it. Martin's theory could potentially hold up for the Americas even if the extinction causes aren't entirely simplistic, but for Eurasia, they alone cannot explain the extinctions of European megafauna. One should note that Eurasia megafauna extinctions in Eurasia are quite low contrary to Australia or the Americas (usually I hear around 30%). I won't go too much over explaining faunal turnover/extinction rates in general since that's a whole other topic, but time has proven that major extinction events (do not confuse them with "mass extinction events") have always occurred due to climatic changes and/or arrival of newer fauna, so the Pleistocene extinction events aren't much of an outlier in the grand scheme of the Paleogene-Neogene-Quaternary (side note, the reason why the modern later Holocene is an outlier and a concern in the first place is due to modern anthropogenic influences of the 1850s onwards, most notably the 2nd Industrial Revolution, that exponentially increased CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuels and other anthropogenic emissions).
 * If you must mention late Pleistocene extinctions in other continents, try to restrict these events to the "later" late Pleistocene-early Holocene, since they share the Last Glacial Maximum retreat proposed extinction causes along with potential human hunting and the proposed Younger Dryas event (so minimize mentions of fauna prior to these events). PrimalMustelid (talk) 00:04, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for elaborating what you think of as ill-formed. However, I still cannot quite follow your argument.
 * The taxon list of mammals > 1000 kg is to be seen as a neutral enumeration of taxons whose demise falls within the general temporary range of what is collectively known as the Quaternary extinction event. You will find all of these as common examples of victims of the Quaternary extinction event. I did not make this defintion, all I do is using it. For none of these examples the cause of extinction has been definitely settled, and while likelihood of one factor vs another may vary from case to case, human impact in whatever form is a possibility for each and every one of them, due to concurrent presence.
 * It does not matter how I think about this, but a common theme that I find ill-fated is considering environmental changes as logical consequences of changes in climate a point of view shared by eminent experts in the field. As we can see today, the exclusion of megafauna from areas will in short term cause an upsurge of woody vegetation and thus habitat deterioration for a whole range of other animals. Given this immediate link, we simply cannot discern whether a deterioration of habitat succeeded or preceeded the extinction of megafauna millennia ago. And, in my opinion, the fact that habitat alterations of the dimensions seen after the last glacial retreat are singular during the Quaternary (i.e. the almost complete disappearance of the earth's largest biome), whereas glacial cycles occured multiple times throughout, point in the direction that a novel factor must have played a role. And the only novel factor that I can think of is modern humans. Something supporters of the climate change hypothesis seem to conveniently ignore is that none of the 8 glacial cycles of the Quaternary had an effect even remotely comparable to the latest one. Of course faunal assemblages expanded and contracted according to the expansion and contraction of their preferred environment, but neither did the Elster-glaciation, even though it brought the furthest advances of ice shields, cause the extinction of the Palaeoloxodon-assemblage, nor did woolly mammoths go during the Eemian, despite it having been aproximately 4° Celsius warmer than the current Holocene. How come harsher climatic realities for both assemblages did not yield the same results? And why did the megafauna, large animals which are to be expected to fare better with climatic changes than smaller animals, due to fat deposits and greater mobility, go extinct while the smaller animals mostly survived? Why did both straight-tusked elephants and woolly mammoths survive the longest on remote islands, even though small islands make it impossible for their inhabitants to escape habitat deterioration? If climate change alone were to blame, it would be expectable that the megafauna survive the longest on the mainland were they could migrate for food.
 * I myself find Martin's model too simplistic to explain Eurasian megafauna extinctions. Which is why I grouped it together with more sophisticated, modern models, all of which have in common that they consider humans the primary, not the only reason for megafauna extinctions. And while a quick overkill is surely not what happened in Eurasia, human impact en large remains a viable scientific explanation.
 * Panthera spelaea, like many carnivores, was an animal that had a large climatic amplitude when it found sufficient habitat and food. Therefore, it thrived during both glacial and interglacial periods. By lions as an example of local extinction, I meant the "lion group" (i.e., spelea and leo lions), which form a monophylum. The only reason I linked to Panthera leo is that there is no wiki article on the larger lion group. And linking to Panthera leo is not wrong either, because although the lion was one of the very few large mammals to initially expand its range in the Holocene, probably taking advantage of ecological gaps left by P. spelaea, its range has since massively deteriorated, and that is all that matters in this case (because we are talking about both Quaternary and Holocene extinctions).
 * The late Pleistocene extinction event is an outlier in that it was caused by a comparatively mild climatic change (mild in comparisson to what was usual during the epoch), that extinct species were incompletely or not at all replaced by new invaders, that the megafauna vanished almost completely while the remaining assemblages remained largely unchanged, and that marine faunas remained virtually unchanged although they should have been as much affected as terrestrial ecosystems if the cause was climate change. Yet whales, the marine megafauna, only start to decline once humans start to venture into their realm, same as with the terrestrial ecosystems millennia before. By and large, the patterns seem undeniable to me.
 * So I don't see why we should limit the examples of extinct megafauna to late victims. The entire section on the Quaternary extinction event is no more than a brief summary of events, and a more detailed consideration of individual cases would, in my opinion, be beyond the scope of both the section and the entire article. Hence the numerous links to the main article "Quaternary extinction event". The fact is that the arguments you cite as to why the article should be changed are opinions for which there are counterarguments in peer-reviewed scientific papers. That's good for a good debate, but not a reason for me to change the article. Rather, in my opinion, you want the article to be unbalanced toward the point of view you are advocating. -AndersenAnders (talk) 17:16, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello @AndersenAnders,
 * Thanks for responding back. I do appreciate that you are challenging some of my feedback! That being said, I think you might not entirely be understanding my point, and it isn't to actively promote natural climate change as the sole or primary cause of the Pleistocene extinctions. If I somehow gave off such a tone towards unbalanced bias, I do apologize, though I don't really appreciate your tone in the last sentence. I accept human hunting and/or human resource competition as a potential cause of faunal extinctions within the epoch with varying effects since they are exceptionally intelligent creatures that can actively mobilize in groups to hunt and gather. I don't want to spend too much time on arguing since I've already mentioned my main feedbacks and don't have much more to add, and I will acknowledge that I'm admittedly biased as a being. However, the point behind my argument is that climate change and human pressures were both co-occurring causes of Pleistocene extinctions on the mainland continents, that while there are similar patterns of both glacial events and human arrivals on continents that specific extinction or extirpation causes can vary by species or genus. As I indicated earlier, the retreat of the Last Glacial Maximum isn't the only time that entire genera went extinct although it's the largest extinction event within Eurasia and the Americas. I did point out that Elasmotherium went extinct 39,000 as an example of a genus that went extinct prior to this extinction event within Eurasia, and you did acknowledge in the article that some of the largest members of the temperate European forest environments (Palaeoloxodon and two rhinoceros genera) already went extinct before the last Glacial Maximum.
 * Also as for the ocean, I do agree that the Pleistocene climate changes hadn't really impacted ocean fauna compared to prior epochs, that humans couldn't have somehow pressured them any further. However, what occurs on terrestrial ecosystems that causes major extinction events doesn't necessarily apply to the ocean, and the other way around can apply as well. Take the Miocene and Pliocene for example: in the early Miocene, pelagic shark diversity had decreased quite sharply according to a recent study by 19 Ma. Comparatively, the middle Miocene disruption events during the Tortonian within Eurasia (or more specifically the Vallesian of Europe) occurred much later without having affected ecosystems of other continents or the ocean. In the Pliocene, a major megafauna extinction event had already occurred in the first place within the oceans only, with 36% of marine megafauna that lived during the Pliocene but failed to live past the early Pleistocene. 55% of the genetic diversity of marine mammals were lost, along with 35% for seabirds, 43% for sea turtles, and 9% for sharks. Now 25% of marine genera that appeared were new, but this accounts for a 15% net loss of genetic diversity from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene. In comparison, there is no indication that any major extinction event has occurred within the Plio-Pleistocene transition within the continents. It is hypothesized that Plio-Pleistocene may have been in part a reduction in neritic areas which would've reduced coastal habitat availability and impacted warm-blooded animals in terms of resource availability from climate change. In comparison, this reduction of coastal habitats did not appear to occur during the late Pleistocene which could be part of why marine megafauna remained intact. Whales were (and still are) only recently threatened in the modern Holocene mainly because of the whaling industries that led to excessive demand and exploitation of them in recent centuries and were relatively unchecked until both the decline of the whale oil industry and federal protection laws of marine wildlife in countries like the US.
 * As for woolly mammoths during the Eemian age, they didn't go extinct, but they were majorly impacted as their habitats were reduced in Eurasia to the point of being restricted to a few northern areas. As the Eemian warming receded and was replaced by cool and dry climates, woolly mammoth populations rebounded and expanded across Eurasia and North America, but this was likely not before they had already experienced bottlenecks that could threaten their very survival again if future climatic changes occurred again. Climate change does not automatically indicate extinctions, but it can bring about genetic bottlenecks that could potentially threaten them again in the future if populations were severely reduced prior. I do not think that humans weren't a notable impact on them at all, do not mistake my arguments as anti-hunting since surely they could further threaten the bottlenecked populations especially at select islands. It's tough to explain how the woolly mammoths survived on islands past the early Holocene, but rising sea levels likely would've blocked further attempts by them to recolonize Eurasia.
 * For why smaller mammals saw far fewer extinctions than larger animals, the answer is usually slower reproduction rates, inability to change dietary niches as easily, and lack of ease in hiding, all of which can bring about likelier extinctions from climate change and invasive animals like, well, humans.
 * Do you now see my point here? I don't know how much clearer I have to make it that extinction events of different ecosystems can have both similar and varying causes. Please don't think I'm pushing humans aside as merely a minor factor in megafaunal extinctions because I do think they could've been responsible for pressuring the last populations of, say woolly mammoths within Siberia and select islands. I also think that Homo sapiens could've played as a major (probably not sole, but major) extinction cause within the Americas and obviously islands in the later Holocene. However, the extinction causes of Eurasia are clearly complicated with climate change being the repeated initial causes of population declines with Homo sapiens potentially exacerbating the events. The Pleistocene glacial events shouldn't be downplayed either, climatic changes leading to habitat recession in entire continents are, at the end of the day, still major although the extent of such impacts vary.
 * I do not want to argue that either is the sole cause of the extinctions, just that their extents can vary by continent. I understand that my main point can be confusing. While human arrival in Australia and at least North America can strongly explain extinctions within the continents, such arguments can be weaker in Eurasia where nowhere near as much genera went extinct, most of which leans towards climate change as the primary potential cause of extinction rather than humans. If you're curious, you can read "Assessing the Causes of Late Pleistocene Extinctions on the Continents," which argues that humans were likely responsible for most extinctions in the Americas and Australia. If you have any questions or further concerns, feel free to respond again. All that I wish is for the section to be a little less simplified. Thanks, and have a nice day. PrimalMustelid (talk) 19:26, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you @PrimalMustelid for responding and explaining. I do get what you mean now, and appreciate your efforts in making your point clearer. In that case I want to thank you for your input. However, I would ask you to tell me more specifically what exactly you would change in the section and how. Give me concrete examples of sentences and paragraphs you would want to change, and how you would change them. As I said, I think the Quaternary extinction section is already fairly large and should, if possible, not become much longer. However, I agree that it may need more nuance.
 * Now for your arguments. The extinction of Elasmotherium falls squarely within the definition of Quaternary extinctions starting at 130.000 years BCE and is temporarily concurrent with the arrival of Homo sapiens 50.000-40.000 years BCE. So I don't understand your point that it should not be counted as a victim of late Pleistocene extinctions, if that is your point.
 * What strikes me most is that in virtually every case of Quaternary extinction, humans can be blamed. In some cases, such as the Eurasian fauna, you can put climate change as the reason. In some, such as the Australian fauna, habitat change can be cited as the reason. For some, a case can be made for natural extinction/replacement/competition. For Palaeoloxodon antiquus, population bottlenecks may be part of the answer, as glacial refugia in the Mediterranean have always been small, fragmented and isolated. For P. namadicus, a closely related species, this model is much less likely, as South Asia has been the best refuge for warmth-loving species for Eons, as evidenced by its unparalleled diversity of temperate and subtropical genera. However, humans can be blamed for each of these extinctions, making them the only common variable. For South America in particular, it is hard to point to climate change as the extinction of species continued well into the Holocene. In Eurasia, the extinction of temperate species preceded climate change. The American mastodon became extinct, although concurrent climate change should have favoured it. However, I agree that the extinction in Eurasia is complicated by climate change and that it is difficult to decipher the causes. Personally, I strongly believe that our planet would still be teeming with megafauna and rich animal groups if humans had not conquered it. But I agree that this is still a subject of scientific debate, which the section should present as accurately as possible.
 * In any case, the situation we find ourselves in, namely that megafauna are an ecological anomaly confined to the global South, is very strange from a palaeoecological point of view and unprecedented since the beginnings of the Cenozoic. It is the first time in 50 million years that there is no native rhinocerotoid species in Europe. Species evolve and disappear, groups radiate and collapse, but the complete lack of ecological continuity on this scale is remarkable to say the least.
 * Out of personal interest, may I ask how you found the article? Please excuse my tone in my latest reply, I seem to have misunderstood your intentions. A nice day to you too -AndersenAnders (talk) 10:03, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry for not responding, life got a bit busier as of late. Thanks for understanding my previous points, I can try to elaborate on what I think should be improved:
 * I think that in the case of Eurasia late Pleistocene extinctions, they should be listed chronologically because it's very easy for casual readers to assume that all the Pleistocene Eurasian mammals that went extinct did so all at the same time. You can group them into different categories in different paragraphs explaining their individual extinctions: pre-Last Cold Stage (~100,000 years ago - ~35,000 years ago), LGM onset (~26 ka), and the Holocene Glacial Retreat (~15 ka - 4 ka). For the pre-LCS, you can mention Hippopotamus amphibius, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, Stephanorhinus hemitoechus, Elasmotherium sibiricum, and Homo neanderthalensis, all of which went extinct within the time range. The next category of extinctions/extirpations of ~26-24 ka are Crocuta crocuta spelaea and Ursus spelaea since they went extinct during the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum unlike the other steppe fauna for reasons unknown. The last extinction category is for ~15 ka - 4 ka: Coelodonta antiquitatis, Megaloceros giganteus, Panthera spelaea, and Mammuthus primigenius. In my opinion, I'd heavily recommend discussing the reindeer population extirpation that occurred by this time as well, especially since they lost 84% of their former population as a result of the Glacial Retreat although they didn't go extinct (source: "Range dynamics of the reindeer in Europe during the last 25,000 years"). If you need a source explaining the late Pleistocene Eurasia extinctions, see "Patterns of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions in Europe and northern Asia," I think that'll help a lot as a useful source. Also try discussing how modern temperate fauna were impacted according to "Late Pleistocene and Holocene History of Mammals in Europe."
 * The point of this would be to explain the dynamics of Pleistocene temperate and steppe fauna from the Eemian age meltdown all the way to the Holocene Glacial Retreat. I'd suggest mentioning how climatic patterns had shifted their populations, especially the woolly mammoth, as their populations were heavily shifted by climate change and could explain genetic bottlenecking. I'd also mention the immigration of Homo sapiens, which had arrived around ~50 ka (previous theories were ~40 ka) (see "Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54,000 years at Madrin, France). I stress the woolly mammoth here because it did rebound after the contraction in population after the Eemian, so there's a lot of history behind it. I think looking into climatic patterns that theoretically would've allowed them to enter Eurasia would be worth looking into as well in addition to researching evidence of human hunting (as well as Homo sapiens' direct correlation with the extinction of the Neanderthals, which there appears to be strong evidence for as opposed to other Eurasian fauna).
 * Now in contrast to Eurasia which is rather weak as an extinction event in comparison, the Americas and Australia went through rather large extinction events with at least 20-40 genera lost per continent. While climate change probably didn't help for at least some fauna, humans were very likely to have engaged in overkill, heavy competition, and/or heavy habitat altercation/loss within these continents. I would mention the similarities to the Eurasia extinctions to some extent but differentiate the extinction events at different continents. The biggest mistake the Quaternary extinction event page does is attempt to explain the extinction events under unitary causes when clearly they vary by continent similar to prior Cenozoic climatic events.
 * I think the extinctions of Eurasia during the Pleistocene were inevitable based on the large amount of paleontological evidence including ones that I posted, but for the Americas, it's difficult to say because we can't predict their survivals, but I'm leaning probably a majority if it weren't for human immigration. Truth is for Europe, it never did particularly well in diversity as it showed sensitivity to large-scale climate change by losing endemic faunal diversity in major extinction events at least two other times, the late Eocene and late Miocene, and Asia was impacted hard as well even if not as severely. In contrast, the Americas weren't as heavily impacted in comparison to Eurasia and even Africa during these time periods, so the Pleistocene extinctions do bring a lot of interest.
 * Also, rhinocerotoids actually never existed in Europe during did Paleocene (rhinos didn't exist this time period) or most of the Eocene. The Rhinocerotoidea superfamily actually first appeared in Asia and North America during the early Eocene, with the first true rhinoceros Trigonias appearing by the Middle Eocene of North America. Rhinocerotoids only started appearing in Europe by the Eocene-Oligocene Transition (by extension the Grande Coupure extinction event in Europe) making their appearance history more recent by ~30 million years ago. The whole rhinocerotidae history is complicated, but it is the only surviving family of the rhino superfamily as a result of the Oligocene-Miocene transition which drove amynodonts and eggysodonts to extinction (paraceratheres and hyracodonts also already went extinct by then) (see "New material of Epiaceratherium and a new species of Mesaceratherium clear up the phylogeny of early Rhinocerotidae (Perissodactyla)" for more information). The Rhinocerotidae existed in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America, the subfamilies being Rhinocerotinae (extant rhinos), Aceratheriinae, and Elasmotheriinae. However, rhinoceros diversity then took a nosedive by the late Miocene-early Pliocene with the extinction of the aceratheres and the reduction in elasmotheres which meant the total extinction of North American rhinos as a result of the extinction of the former (the former whose extinction is caused by the retreat of C3 plants). Rhinocerotinae and elasmotherinae were the remaining rhino subfamilies in the Pliocene up until the Pleistocene with the last member Elasmotherium eventually going extinct by the late Pleistocene and Coelodonta going extinct by the late Pleistocene-early Holocene transition. As a result, rhinos lost more territories in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, now appearing only in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Rhino diversity was as a result weak since the late Miocene in comparison to the early-middle Miocene. While 2 genera of rhinos and what remained of one subfamily did go extinct in the Pleistocene, it's not comparatively as bad as losing an entire subfamily by the early Pliocene and having another be weakened by then.
 * I found this article months ago because I was looking through the list of peer reviews for science and then came across this article (was looking for a fact check for the Enhydriodon article at the time). I just bumped into it by chance and then read it basically.
 * Hope this helps! I'll be busy for the time being though I'll be watching the article's edits, but if you have further questions, let me know! PrimalMustelid (talk) 21:09, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I apologise for taking so long to reply to you, but I am also quite busy at the moment.
 * Thank you for your thoughtful response. I agree with you in principle, but I am not sure that the level of detail you suggest for the section on Quaternary extinction would be appropriate, although I would be happy to implement it. This is only a brief summary. A rough overview of what the Quaternary extinction event is, what happened and why it is relevant to Vera's hypothesis. And frankly, it's important that it happened, not so much why. I have tried to go into the reasons as little as possible throughout the article, because the discussion is a rabbit hole that this section simply cannot adequately cover. Please tell me if you think I'm wrong about that. I just don't want to bloat the section. Nonetheless, I will try to implement your suggestions where they make sense to me.
 * Clearly, you are more well-versed in palaeontology and past extinction events than I am. However, I would like to point out is that I simply do not understand how the Quaternary extinction are comparable to earlier Cenozoic climatic extinctions, because the climatic change itself does not seem severe enough to me to accept it as the main cause in most of the cases. In the late Miocene, for example, the spread of grasslands brought about a collapse of rhino diversity, most likely because of the habitat alterations that debilitated browsers. All this was accompanied by a continuous decrease in temperature and evidently major ecological upheavals, which also saw the rise of groups like oaks (white oaks and red oaks in particular), corvids and ungulates. In the late Pleistocene/early Holocene extinctions, however, the patterns seem fundamentally different. The grasslands many species depended on still exist, even the mammoth steppe does in remnants and in principle, herbivores in Beringia (Pleistocene Park) seem able to revive it. At least they manage to build up and maintain their preferred habitat, which is often disputed by supporters of the climate change hypothesis. Normally, the causes of mass extinctions are large volcanic erruptions, major changes in ecosystem composition or ctastrophic events in general. In the late Quaternary extinctions, there is no such factor. The climate change that occured simultaneously in some regions was not unusually severe in respect to the ones that preceded it that did not have a similar effect. The changes in vegetation (collapse of steppe ecosystems, rise of woody plants), could be a factor, but to me comparisson with earlier climate changes with no similar effect point in the direction that it was the consequence of megafauna extinctions and not the cause.
 * Anyway, thank you for your valuable input and sources. I will try to implement them, but it may take a while. -AndersenAnders (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello @PrimalMustelid, what do you think of my latest edits? AndersenAnders (talk) 20:14, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Looks good so far, liking the mentions of the 3 extinction waves of the late Pleistocene of Europe. One thing to correct, Elasmotherium sibricum lived in a dry steppe environment as a specialized feeder rather than in a temperate environment, so you might want to mention it as kind of a special case extinction that occurred within the first extinction wave. For the 3rd wave of extinctions, make sure to emphasize that the extinct fauna with the exception of Megaloceros were dry steppe inhabitants, and that Megaloceros was a special case of a temperate forest animal. Also, you can use the sources I've listed in my comments earlier if you want to cite the latest edit, so I'd recommend citing them for people who want further information about the extinctions.
 * Thanks for taking my feedback, and keep up the good work! I'm removing the template to reflect the satisfactory update. PrimalMustelid (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, Megaloceros giganteus was a species that thrived best in the transitional zones between the mammoth steppe and the temperate half-open woodlands and occured in the periphery of both, which is why I have now opted to group it together with the species of the mammoth steppe and adjacent areas. Thank you for your valuable input and the overall fruitful dicussion. Feel free to get back to me if you have further suggestions for improvement. Thanks for removing the template. AndersenAnders (talk) 10:47, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

GA criteria
I'm not able to complete a full review but the citation needed tags will need to be fixed prior to this article becoming a GA. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads up, should be okay now AndersenAnders (talk) 13:20, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

The lede has no references
The lede is so long that it looks more like a short article, and yet it cites no sources. Presumably one has to read the entire article, which is very long, to find out which of the claims in the lede are actually sourced and which ones are thoughtful reflections of an individual editor (some of them certainly sound very much like the latter - speculations like 'whether or not the hypothesis is supported may thus further depend on whether ...', etc.). 62.73.69.121 (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The lead has no citations as per MOS:lead cite. The relevant sources can be found by navigating to the relevant section. AndersenAnders (talk) 10:07, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Vera limited the geographic area of his ideas to Western and Central Europe between 45°N and 58°N latitude and 5°W and 25°W longitude.
Surely this should read "5degreesW and 25degreesE longitude"? 81.102.20.141 (talk) 10:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)