Long-term study shows effect of climate change on animal diversity
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This photo shows exposures of the Siwalik Group sediments on the Potwar Plateau in Pakistan
(PhysOrg.com) -- Two species of giraffe, several rhinos and five elephant relatives, along with multitudes of rodents, bush pigs, horses, antelope and apes, once inhabited what is now northern Pakistan. But when climate shifted dramatically there some eight million years ago, precipitating a major change in vegetation, most species became locally extinct rather than adapting to the new ecosystem, an extensive, long-term study of mammal fossils spanning a five-million-year period reveals.
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