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OCTOBER 19, 2000

Ross MacPhee, a curator of mammalogy at American Museum of Natural History in New York, believes viruses, not ancestors to today's Indians, killed off large mammals which once roamed the Americas.

MacPhee, however believes the arrival of humans to the Americas, did contribute to the extinction of some 135 species of large animals. These include mastodons, camels, lions, cheetahs, sabre-tooth cats, horses, and giant sloths.

Humans, or animals they brought, could have brought viruses that transferred onto the large animals, believes MacPhee. He hopes to test his theory by examining bone marrow samples extracted from wooly mammoths in Siberia.

Other scientists advocate two major theories. One is a climate change which led to the exinctions.

The other is the arrival of Indians to the Americas, presumably from the Bering Strait. This theory alleges that small groups of hunters hunted the large animals to death.

The extinction of the species happened over a 400-year time period starting about 13,000 years ago.

Get the Story:
Mammoth puzzle: Scientists seek clues to mysterious extinctions (The Lincoln Journal Star 10/19)

Relevant Links:
Raising the Mammoth, What Killed Wooly? exn.ca/mammoth/Extinction.cfm