Megafauna

July 4, 2024

The discovery of a 41,000-year-old ostrich nest by a team of archaeologists in Prakasam, Andhra Pradesh could provide key information about the extinction of megafauna in the Indian subcontinent.

About Megafauna:

This term is generally used to describe animals weighing more than 50 kg.
The term was first used by the English naturalist and explorer Alfred Russel Wallace in his 1876 book, The Geographical Distribution of Animals.
Megafauna may be classified based on their dietary type as megaherbivores (plant-eaters), megacarnivores (meat-eaters), and megaomnivores (who eat both plants and meat).
- Ostriches are megaomnivores, with an adult ostrich weighing anywhere between 90 and 140 kg, with height between seven and nine feet.
Historical evidence of Megafauna
- The earliest documented evidence of the species in the subcontinent was presented by Richard Lydekker in 1884 in the Dhok Pathan deposits in Upper Siwalik (Sivalik) Hills in present-day Pakistan.
- Archaeologist S A Sali in 1989 reported the discovery of ostrich eggshell beads and engraved pieces (dating back to roughly 50,000–40,000 years ago) in an Upper Palaeolithic open-air camping site at Patne, Maharashtra.
- In 2017, researchers at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad assessed the ages of a batch of fossilised egg shells from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, and established the presence of ostriches 25,000 years ago.