The survival of megafauna after the end-Pleistocene impact: a lesson from the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary

Abstract

Survival of Pleistocene megafauna after the hypothesized impact of a bolide during the latest Pleistocene seems to be partly island-centered, whereas that the survival of dinosaurs and ammonites after the comparable catastrophe at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary seems to have occurred in a fairly haphazard way within the areas affected by the impact. This poses some new questions about the possible mechanism behind the end-Pleistocene extinction, although it does not disprove an impact as a plausible cause.