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Reptiles Magazine
The researchers attribute the decline of the reptiles to the introduction of cats and mongoose.
May 19, 2021
The Terre-de-Haut racer (Alsophis sanctonum). Photo by Xavier Heckmann/Wikipedia
A new study of how European colonization impacted the Guadeloupe Islands in the French Caribbean details how the arrival of Europeans caused half of the islands lizard and snake populations to go extinct.
Dr. Corentin Bochaton and Professor Nicole Boivin of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany along with researchers with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and the Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), looked at 43,000 bone fragments from fossil and archaeological assemblages on six of the islands in the archipelago and found that 50 to 70 percent of reptiles
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.
Ideas, Inventions And Innovations
Oldest Human Burial Yet Discovered: 78,000 Year Old Grave Holds Child
A new study, appearing in Nature on May 5, reports the oldest known modern human burial in Africa. The 2.5 to 3 year old child was buried in a stooped position in a shallow grave directly under the protective rock overhang at the entrance to the cave. The burial in Panga ya Saidi joins the growing number of references to early complex social behavior Homo sapiens .
The Pangy ya Saidi cave on the coast of Kenya. The 78,000-year-old burial of a child was discovered in the pit in the foreground, secured by planks.
The grave of a three-year-old child who lived 78,000 years ago has been found in Kenya and is thought to be the earliest known burial of a human in Africa.
Dubbed Mtoto, Swahili for child, the individual was interred in the foetal position with their knees drawn up to their chest. The gender of the child remains unknown.
Excavations at the site revealed the body was buried deliberately in a small pit with a pillow, wrapped in a shroud, and left untouched until scientists found it in 2013.
Mtoto has physical characteristics similar to modern Homo sapiens but retains some archaic features which reveals their close genetic links to distant African ancestors.