Enormous cave bears that once inhabited Europe were the first of the mega-mammals to die out, going extinct around 13 millennia earlier than was previously thought, according to a new estimate. Why'd they go? In part because they were vegetarians. The new extinction date, 27,800 years ago, coincides with a period of significant climate change, known as the Last Glacial Maximum, when a marked cooling in temperature resulted in a reduction or total loss of the vegetation that the cave bears ate (today's brown bears are omnivores). The loss of this food supply led to the extinction of the cave bear, Ursus spelaeus, one of a group of "megafauna" — including the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, giant deer and cave lion — to disappear during the last Ice Age, the researchers wrote in a research paper published online Nov. 26 in the journal Boreas.
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