Max Planck Society
Researchers use fossil data to reveal the primary drivers and extent of colonial era extinctions
A new study published in Science Advances uses fossil and archaeological archives to demonstrate that colonial era extinctions in Guadeloupe occurred on a much more massive scale than previously thought, with more than 50% of the islands’ squamate species disappearing in the centuries after 1492
In recent years, the evidence of human impacts on Earth’s systems has caused researchers to call for recognition of a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which human activity is a major driver of climate and ecosystem change. However, despite growing evidence of the impacts of human societies, the extent of biodiversity loss in recent centuries is still poorly understood.
Credit: Andrey Atuchin
A giant mosasaur from the end of the Cretaceous period in Morocco that could have reached up to eight metres long is the third new species to be described from the region in less than a year, bringing the total number of species up to at least 13.
The high diversity of the fauna shows how mosasaurs, giant marine lizards related to snakes and Komodo dragons, thrived in the final million years of the Cretaceous period before they, and most of all species on Earth, were wiped out by the impact of a giant asteroid 66 million years ago.
Gozitan artist Mario Cassar has devised his personal unorthodox method at artistic expression, one which he has been pursuing since 1999. What set him on this j