world map of mammals would look like if modern man (Homo sapiens) had never existed.

In a world without humans, most of northern Europe would probably now be home to not only wolves, Eurasian elk (moose) and bears, but also animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses, it says.

The current diversity of large mammals is shown. It can clearly be seen that large numbers of species virtually only occurs in Africa, and that there are generally far fewer species throughout the world than there could have been.CREDIT: Illustration: Soren Faurby.

In their new study, researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark have shown in their analysis that the mass extinction of large mammals during the Last Ice Age and in subsequent millennia is largely explainable from the expansion of modern man (Homo sapiens)last refuge because “the continent is one of the only places where human activities have not yet wiped out most of the large animals,” says Postdoctoral Fellow Soren Faurby, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, who is the lead author on the study.

The study has been published in the journal Diversity and Distributions.