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https://hdl.handle.net/2440/111414
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Type: | Journal article |
Title: | High-quality fossil dates support a synchronous, Late Holocene extinction of devils and thylacines in mainland Australia |
Author: | White, L. Saltré, F. Bradshaw, C. Austin, J. |
Citation: | Biology Letters, 2018; 14(1):1-4 |
Publisher: | Royal Society |
Issue Date: | 2018 |
ISSN: | 1744-9561 1744-957X |
Statement of Responsibility: | Lauren C. White, Frederik Saltre, Corey J. A. Bradshaw and Jeremy J. Austin |
Abstract: | The last large marsupial carnivores-the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilis harrisii) and thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus)-went extinct on mainland Australia during the mid-Holocene. Based on the youngest fossil dates (approx. 3500 years before present, BP), these extinctions are often considered synchronous and driven by a common cause. However, many published devil dates have recently been rejected as unreliable, shifting the youngest mainland fossil age to 25 500 years BP and challenging the synchronous-extinction hypothesis. Here we provide 24 and 20 new ages for devils and thylacines, respectively, and collate existing, reliable radiocarbon dates by quality-filtering available records. We use this new dataset to estimate an extinction time for both species by applying the Gaussian-resampled, inverse-weighted McInerney (GRIWM) method. Our new data and analysis definitively support the synchronous-extinction hypothesis, estimating that the mainland devil and thylacine extinctions occurred between 3179 and 3227 years BP. |
Keywords: | AMS dating Holocene devil extinction thylacine |
Rights: | © 2018 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. |
DOI: | 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0642 |
Grant ID: | http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP130104055 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP130103842 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT110100306 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT100100108 |
Published version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0642 |
Appears in Collections: | Aurora harvest 8 Environment Institute publications |
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