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Old October 6th 05, 02:46 AM
Herman Rubin
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In article ,
Jim Logajan wrote:
(Rand Simberg) wrote:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs...oth_print.html


Hey, get in line! Another theory says really hungry post ice-age hunters
wiped out the mammoths:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0803173345.htm


Okay, so why weren't bison/buffalo "impacted" by either the alleged hunters
or the alleged supernova? Not big or tasty enough? I think we need more
theories....


The usual explanation given why the bison were not impacted
by the hunters was that the time to maturity of bison is just
a few years, while that for the mammoths was probably similar
to modern elephants, on the order of 15 years.

Bison are cross-fertile with domestic cattle; with a reproduction
rate of about 1/5 as much, it was not hard to wipe them out.
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Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558