Footprints preserve terminal Pleistocene hunt? Human-sloth interactions in North America
Predator-prey interactions revealed by vertebrate trace fossils are extremely rare. We present footprint evidence from White Sands National Monument in New Mexico for the association of sloth and human trackways. Geologically, the sloth and human trackways were made contemporaneously, and the sloth...
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Published in | Science advances Vol. 4; no. 4; p. eaar7621 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
American Association for the Advancement of Science
01.04.2018
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Predator-prey interactions revealed by vertebrate trace fossils are extremely rare. We present footprint evidence from White Sands National Monument in New Mexico for the association of sloth and human trackways. Geologically, the sloth and human trackways were made contemporaneously, and the sloth trackways show evidence of evasion and defensive behavior when associated with human tracks. Behavioral inferences from these trackways indicate prey selection and suggest that humans were harassing, stalking, and/or hunting the now-extinct giant ground sloth in the terminal Pleistocene. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2375-2548 2375-2548 |
DOI: | 10.1126/sciadv.aar7621 |