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What annoys you about paleontology?; Rant on about moronic theories, complaints, or just animals that annoy you.
Topic Started: Sep 28 2013, 05:04 PM (256,242 Views)
Acanthophis
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When the paleontologist assumes that the American megafauna disappeared 11,000 years ago without full carbon dating and encourage the vision that these animals mostly have no place in today's ecosystems, immediately refuting any contrary opinion. :/
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CyborgIguana
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Acanthophis
Feb 28 2015, 08:10 PM
When the paleontologist assumes that the American megafauna disappeared 11,000 years ago without full carbon dating and encourage the vision that these animals mostly have no place in today's ecosystems, immediately refuting any contrary opinion. :/
It isn't because they're biased, it's because science only accepts what can be accounted for with concrete evidence. I have yet to see any real, convincing evidence that mammoths, saber-toothed cats, or ground sloths are still alive and well in today's ecosystems.
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Acanthophis
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Good point
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Posted Image Guat
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Acanthophis
Feb 28 2015, 08:10 PM
When the paleontologist assumes that the American megafauna disappeared 11,000 years ago without full carbon dating and encourage the vision that these animals mostly have no place in today's ecosystems, immediately refuting any contrary opinion. :/
Actually they used carbon dating to see when the American Megafauna went extinct. Also much of the American Megafauna need each other to survive as well.
Edited by Guat, Feb 28 2015, 08:43 PM.
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Furka
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Acanthophis
Feb 28 2015, 08:10 PM
encourage the vision that these animals mostly have no place in today's ecosystems
Encourage is a bit exagerated, but most of those animals do not have a place in modern world.
The large mammals we have are already facing lots of troubles due to lack of space, so imagine what would happen with Columbian mammoths or sabertooth cats.
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Acanthophis
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Adaptable animals like the camel, the peccary and the ground sloth were not dependent on other megafauna to survive, actually some plants suffer because this animals went extinct (Sorry for my really bad english grammar)
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Furka
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Ground Sloth would likely depend on Megafauna predators to keep their population under control, I am not sure modern predators could hunt them successfully (unless they were slow breeders).
And aren't peccaries still living in the USA ?
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Posted Image Drax
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In the southernmost bits, yes. They're more common in Central America though.
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babehunter1324
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Well, there seems to be some evidence that "some" megafauna surivived until the Holocene the Wrangel Island woolly mammoth beign the most well know exemple but some fossil material seems to point out that Megaloceros and Panthera leo survived until a few thousands years ago in the Caucasus as well as Stegomastodon/Notiomastodon and Cuvieronius in South America*

*On a side note, how cool would had been that a genus of Gomphoterid made it until the present? (Altough it probably would had became extinct either way in modern times but it's just a cool concept).

On a mostly unrelated note, one thing that makes my blood boil is how uncontrasted and horribly inaccurate paleontological discoveries are communicated by the main stream media, take this for exemple:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2856298/Humans-DIDN-T-drive-mastodon-extinction.html
Pretty callous headline isn't it? Claiming that new discoveries made in 2014 shattered all recent previous studies that seem to confirm that humans are indeed the culprits on the American mastodon extinction and that they just "freeze to death" (that one is taken from another headline about the topic, btw >:( ).

OFC that's not what the paper stated, what it actually states is that a decrease in temperatures caused the dissaperance of coniferous and mixed forests in Beringia forcing the mastodons (and other species like ground sloths and giant beavers) to areas further South, note they MIGRATED South and they were still around by the time humans arrived to the continent which with all likehood contribute to their deffintive extinction.

Edit*: Kudos for Science-News for not "skewing up" the headline http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-mastodons-beringia-ancient-humans-02311.html
Edited by babehunter1324, Mar 1 2015, 10:55 AM.
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Jules
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Mihi est imperare orbi universo

That Dinosaurus and Pterosaurus_are junior synonyms - which means they can't be reused - and that they're respectively a Dinocephalian and a chameleon.
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Cheshire Litten
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The Eyes that follow you in the Alolan forests

that insects have top priority to awesome scientific names and dinosaurs have bottom priority
Edited by Cheshire Litten, Mar 2 2015, 12:28 PM.
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Okeanos
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No, that's not how it works. It's just that they were described with that name first ;)
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Jules
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Mihi est imperare orbi universo

Looking for skeletals or launching .gifs of Pterosaurs and stumbling on David Peters.
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

Crookedjaw
Mar 2 2015, 02:19 PM
Looking for skeletals or launching .gifs of Pterosaurs and stumbling on David Peters.
Hidden by the staff
Edited by Crookedjaw, Mar 2 2015, 07:42 PM.
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CyborgIguana
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You can tell just by looking at that gif that the Dimorphodon should have taken off perfectly. Peters just decided to deliberately make it plunge downward again so it would look like he was onto some biomechanical error with quad-launching that only exists in his miniature brain.
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