Extinction dates

You write that some animals died out at least partially due to hunting.  When did they become extinct?

This is a bit different for different animals:

• Ancylotherium hennigi went extinct 1.8 million years ago.
• Coelodonta antiquitatis (woolly rhino) went extinct about 10,000 years ago.
• Dinofelis barlowi (“terrible cat”) went extinct 1.2 million years ago.
• Doedicurus went extinct 7,000 years ago.
• Megatherium americanum went extinct 10,000 years ago.
• Smilodon populator (sabre-toothed cat) went extinct 10,000 years ago.

The first one was probably eaten up as soon as pre-humans learned to hunt large animals.  The “terrible cat” was gradually outcompeted during several hundreds of millennia.  The rest could not cope with the combination of human hunting and climate change.  The later means the transit to an almost current climate.

This page was last changed on the 21st of July 2023.