The exciting discovery of an extinct species of Tibetan fox adds more credence to the out-of-Tibet hypothesis, in which the Tibetan Plateau served as a cradle of Ice Age megafauna in northern Eurasia.
by Sci-News.com
For the last 2.5 million years, Earth has experienced cold and warm, millennia-long cycles that collectively have become known as the Ice Age.
During cold periods, continental-scale ice sheets blanketed large tracts of the northern hemisphere. As the climate warmed up, these colossal glaciers receded.
The advance and retreat of the ice sheets also had a profound influence in the evolution and geographic distribution of many animals, including those that live today in the Arctic regions.
Previously, paleontologists described a great number of extinct, cold-adapted species – of a wooly rhino (Coelodonta thibetana), three-toed horse (Hipparion), Tibetan bharal (Pseudois, known as blue sheep), chiru (Pantholops, known as Tibetan antelope), snow leopard (Uncia), badger (Meles), and 23 other mammals – that lived in what is now the Tibetan Plateau during the Pliocene and Pleistocene (5 million to 11,500 years ago).
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