Mégafaune

The mégafaune indicates the whole of the animal species of big size. The heaviest whole of the mammals is thus arbitrarily defined. One will speak by extension about Mégafaune for the Acarien S about the millimetre with respect to acarina about ten micrometer. The fauna moreover small size is classified in the Macrofaune and the Microfaune. The term is especially employed in the general public to indicate the disappeared fauna with the Quaternaire.

Mégafaune of mammal

These animals generally follow a strategy of evolution r/K, having a great longevity and slow growth rates of population, a low death rate, and especially little or not of Prédateur S able to attack adults. These characteristics make the mégafaune strongly vulnerable vis-a-vis the human ones and to the Climate change.

The interest of this concept is to highlight a brutal reduction of the number of these species during last tens of thousands of years, testimony of an important modification of the environment. The limit inferior as weight for these animals is variable according to the stages and of the mediums. The current limit is of 45kg, it was of more than one ton during the Holocène. The Cétacé S always constitute an example of mégafaune giant.

One can then associate this term either with the area, or with the period, example: Mégafaune American of Pleistocene. The South American Mégafaune is a current mégafaune. Usually, the Australian Mégafaune indicates a mégafaune disappeared between 50.000 and 20.000 years.

See too

Extinction of Holocene the

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