Observations on Elephant Mortality and Bones in Water Holes
Observations on Elephant Mortality and Bones in Water Holes
复制标题
对水坑中大象死亡率和骨头的观察
DOI：
10.1016/0033-5894(84)90039-5
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发表时间：
1984
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
G. Haynes
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Conybeare;G. Haynes
1982年异常严重的干旱导致津巴布韦万基国家公园天然水源的大象暂时死亡。与现存种群相比，因干旱死亡的动物的年龄结构严重偏向2至8岁的动物。然而，这些年轻大象的新鲜尸体与早期死亡的成年大象的风化遗骸混合在一起，形成了一个年龄结构更接近于现存种群的混合骨骼样本。观察大象的骨头，积累了由于自然死亡率在水坑可能提供类似物的古生态学解释的化石长鼻类组合。
An unusually severe drought in 1982 led to a temporary die-off of elephants at a natural water source in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Compared to living populations, the age structure of the animals killed by drought is strongly biased toward 2-to 8-year-old animals. However, the fresh carcasses of these young elephants were commingled with weathered remains of adults that had died earlier, creating a mixed skeletal sample whose age structure was much closer to that of living populations. Observations of elephant bones that have accumulated due to natural mortality at water holes might provide analogs for paleoecological interpretations of fossil proboscidean assemblages.