Re: Equids
WIlliam C. Wilson (Wildbill@ilhawaii.net)
29 Dec 1994 07:37:16 GMT
> There are still some other "big game" mammals, predators like the wolf and
> the grizzly, which once roamed extensive areas, who have managed to survive
> even though the extent of their range is greatly reduced.Some species, like
> the Bison, even have been known to go from the edge of extinction to
> sizable herds.
Acouple of things to consider here:
1)the wolf and grizzly are predators not game animals atleast to
a hunter without modern firearms (I'm talking about food hunting
here not status hunting)
2)when crops (and animals)were first domesticated populations
rose at extremely high rates at first then stabilized at the
carrying capacity of the new technology. The same may have been true
of the Amerind invasion of the Americas. A new rich food supply
that was unafraid and "unknowing" of man could easily have lead
to an extremely large population growth that would have allowed man
to spread as rapidly as he "did".
3)the question to ask is probably why did horses?, mammoths, etc.
die out suddenly at @10,000BC and other large herbivores (elk,bison,
antelope, etc.) not die out. I don't know of a good reason and I
suspect no one else does either.
> The horse may very well have survived the ice age in the Americas,> <pb>
Hey, I never said it didn't, the Ice starts retreating @14,000 BC
and is done by about 9000BC, the climatic adjustments do seem to
continue to about 5000BC or slightly earlier.
> One other interesting tidbit is that as late as 35 million years ago
> there was still intermitent contact between Africa and South America.
WHAT is your source for this? I know of nothing this recent.
Keep on asking questions we all learn from it.
Bill Wilson
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