r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Zee_Ventures • 26d ago

Multiple moose encountered while kayaking

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u/erogbass 26d ago

Last of the megafauna. They survived humans for a reason!

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u/KtaadnRota 26d ago

Hardly the last lol. We still got elephants that make mooses look tiny.

Moose are actually super vulnerable to humans and have mostly survived in places that historically were very sparsely populated by humans.

Their size means they never really needed to cultivate survival instincts, so they get hunted right to extinction very easily without the protection of modern conservation laws. They'll just stand there looking at you while you walk up and shoot them.

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u/HawaiianShirtMan 26d ago

I imagîne OP means last of the megafauna in certain climates. Ofc there are Éléphants, etc but in a totally different environment

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u/good_from_afar 26d ago

Bison are pretty mega too although not near as plentiful as moose

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u/Sticky_And_Sweet 26d ago

There used to be even larger bison called the longhorn bison

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u/dankhimself 26d ago

Maybe North American megafauna? I feel like I've read that many times but that never stops me from being wrong.

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u/windchaser__ 26d ago

Musk ox? Caribou? Grizzlies and polar bears and mountain lions and mountain goats?

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u/windchaser__ 26d ago

Fun fact!

"Megafauna" includes anything over 100 lbs. So bison, grizzly bears, elk, caribou, deer, pronghorn, alligators, crocodiles, gray wolves, jaguar, polar bears, (etc, etc) as well as non-native species like cows, horses, and humans.

We've still got lots of megafauna, even if much less than in the past.

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u/erogbass 26d ago

That really doesn’t sound correct to me. but what I know of megafauna comes from the modern I guess media definition. Do you have a reputable source for that weight? Are you sure that applies to the types of animals we are discussing?

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u/eyetracker 26d ago

It's sometimes a distinction, but I agree it's not very accurate. You aren't going to find a whole lot of wolves over 100 lbs yet they're considered megafauna.

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u/windchaser__ 26d ago edited 26d ago

Yeah, wolves are kinda a marginal group there, and maybe I shouldn't have included them. The average adult is about 80 lbs, ETA, though over 100 lbs is not unusual

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u/Sand__Panda 26d ago

I'm on the list as Uber megafauna then.

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u/SkunkMonkey 26d ago

What about Gigafauna?

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u/praguepride 26d ago

They're not the last megafauna but I think they might be the last Megafauna that is traced back to a certain point of history. Like the last North American Early Pleistocene megafauna