London, Aug 17 (IANS) Humans drove an ancient, giant turtle species to extinction in the Pacific about 3,000 years ago.
Researchers found the turtles, a never-before-seen species in the genus Meiolania, were driven to extinction by settlers on an island of Vanuatu, east of Australia.
This was despite the turtles, which were more than eight feet in length, outliving most of the outsized, extinct animals known as megafauna, reports the Telegraph.
Experts believe most of the Australian megafauna species, such as the woolly mammoth, died almost 50,000 years ago. But it is not known what exactly killed them.
The University of New South Wales scientists in Australia said the giant turtles were alive when people known as the Lapita arrived in the area about 3,000 years ago, says the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
They found the turtle leg bones, but not shells or skulls, which they said suggested humans helped drive the giant turtles to extinction.
The bones, discovered in a graveyard on a site on the island of Efate that was known to be home to a Lapita settlement, date about 300 years after humans’ arrival.
The majority of the bones, found above an even older human graveyard, were from the creatures’ legs, which was their fleshy and edible part.
The scientists concluded this was proof that the turtles were hunted by humans to extinction for their meat.
‘It is the first time this family of turtles has been shown to have met with humans and there are many turtle bones in the middens,’ said Trevor Worthy, from the University of New South Wales.
