The shell of one early meiolaniid species, known from fossils recovered in South America and named Stupendemys for its size, was 11 feet long and seven feet wide. The more modern Meiolania platyceps, found in Australia and Melanesia, had a relatively small five-foot-diameter shell, and weighed an estimated half-ton. All had armored club tails and horned heads.
The bones of the newly discovered species, named Meiolania damelipi and described August 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tell a clear story. They were found in a mound of animal bones discarded near a village of Lapita, a seafaring culture that 3,500 years ago spread east across Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia people. The bottom layer of the garbage pile, dated to 3,000 years ago, had many meiolaniid bones. The top layer, dated to 2,800 years ago, had none.
The Lapita would have hunted the slow-moving turtles, burned forests to clear cropland, and brought pigs and rats that ate their eggs. Scientists estimate that Vanuatu could have supported tens of thousands of M. damelipi, but in just 200 years they were gone. And if giant land turtles were on Vanuatu, they were likely found on other Pacific islands, and hunted into oblivion.
This fits a pattern of human-preceded extinction recorded worldwide in large animals — collectively known as Pleistocene megafauna — but especially pronounced in the South Pacific, where every populated island lost betwen 30 and 50 percent of all animal species. These included giant iguanas, terrestrial crocodiles and dozens of birds. Bones of other now-extinct avian species were also found in the Vanuatu heap.
Original article here.
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