Humans Come to Australia, Discover They Like Large Eggs

Genyornis newtoni was a seriously large bird: 7 feet tall and 500 pounds. But size doesn’t matter when humans develop a taste for your eggs. Analysis of G. newtoni eggshell fragments from 200 sites across Australia describes telltale burn marks produced by a localized heat source rather than the all-encompassing heat of a wildfire—an indication that the eggs had been harvested and cooked. More than 8 in 10 species weighing over 100 pounds, including G. newtoni, became extinct shortly after humans arrived down under around 50,000 years ago.