End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals

If you're curious about the species and lives of the MegaFauna that once roamed the planet, this is the book you're looking for!

I am not a scientist, let alone a paleontologist, but complement the author on the honesty with which he appraises one of the discipline's hottest debates: whether the charismatic big animals of ages past disappeared through human action, climate change, or - as seems most likely - a combination of different factors in different places. The lavish illustrations mean the book can be enjoyed simply as a review of fascinating creatures about which we still know too little.

I enjoyed this book 3 1/2 stars. Like many others have said, the illustrations are a key for this book. they show the amazing diversity of megafauna which went extinct and give us context on these amazing animals.I found the text unsatisfying. The author gives equal weight to every theory that caused extinctions - human caused, meteor, climate change and then goes to lengths to discredit Martin's human caused theory. It seemed that the author is in the archeologist camp that humans could not cause extinctions.But how can animals that evolved and have lived millions of years blink out when humans suddenly appear. It seems the author could/should have considered more secondary effects. A great case study is likely Australia with human caused burns changing the ecosystem habitat in addition to hunting in times of climate stress and stress to calving grounds that would have caused the megafauna extinctions in Australia. Small changes in ecosystems have large species impacts such a the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone - but this is a context the author does not try to explore.But I'm still glad I read this book.

This beautifully illustrated book covers the two leading theories of the recent extinction of ice age megafauna worldwide (Human Overkill vs Climate Change), and touched on several others. It's quite the page-turner, something rare for this sort of book. It gave me quite a bit more information on the topic without overloading on technical jargon. The author presents as much as is currently known, attempting to remain balanced, offering evidence to support/contradict each theory.Also, know going in the book is an examination of the extinction event, rather than an in-depth look at megafauna species alive at that time. Certainly noteworthy species are remarked upon, and aspects of animal biology and ecology are addressed at times, but it's not a field guide to Pleistocene wildlife.In the end, the jury is still out on the final culprit. None of the theories presented perfectly answer the known information. Most likely multiple culprits in different circumstances are to blame. As in so many other things, it's not so cut and dried, but the reader is left with a far greater understanding of the issues.And did I mention the wonderful illustrations?I found this book to be highly engaging and informative, and definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in paleontology and natural history!

Aside from a lot of great pictures of extinct mega fauna this book does not really add much new for people who have been following the mega fauna extinction debate. I felt that the tone was a little biased against Martin, but he did conclude that most of the Conservation Biologists feel that Martin's Overkill hypothesis is best explains the extinction for many large animals. My understanding from talking with some Conservation Biologists is that for long lived species with low adult mortality a slight increase in adult mortality can lead to extinction in 100s to a 1,000 years. It is not necessary to kill all the individuals of a species to drive it to extinction. Small fragmented populations are much more vulnerable to stochastic events. Many people that I know seem to believe that climate change stressed many of the mega fauna, however if it weren't for over hunting many of the large species would have survived.The author seems to prefer his idea that some unknown disease killed the mega fauna but offers no evidence. There are many obvious reasons why a unknown pathogen does not seem likely. The pathogen would have had to kill many divers species, many of them separated by great distances, continents and islands.I did enjoy reading this book and have loaned it to several friends. This book does not really present any new information but does have a lot of pictures and gives estimates to how large some of the mega fauna really were.

Interesting & beautiful book. Coffee table worthy.

The images are great, but most of this book oscillates on flawed historical arguments of if humans did or didn't kill off the megafauna. It over focus on simple single anaimal hunting while barely notes complex hunting strategies like burning forests. Whales are a good near term example of recent mamal near extinction but were also not referenced. Also it confuses "island" level events (because of sea level rise) with continental events. I guess if one wants somewhat flawed examples showing humans were not involved with the death of megafauna the text is ok.

Nothing conclusive but that’s science?

I'm going to love this book. The text is crisp and informative and the paintings are superb. BUT, I would have suggested a scale of some sort. We have only the title of the book to suggest that we are looking at giant beasts. Well, how big is big. The pages display large creatures standing side by side, but without a scale, we don't know whether we are looking at beasties the size of a mouse or the size of a modern-day elephant .It's a nit-picking point that won't stop me enjoying my read, so I'll stop waffling now.

Nice art work but text was a long drawn out and inconclusive debate about whether human beings were responsible for the extinction of mega fauna.

A beautiful and superb book which deals with a truly fascinating era very recent in our natural history, sometimes very recent. This book was delivered promptly.

Covers all theory's which could of possibly lead to the mega mammals extinctions.The book goes into great detail analysing evidence supporting each theory.

Let's just say, I think he'll like it.