Ross MacPhee

Ross MacPhee is a Canadian American mammalogist at the American Museum of Natural History who is highly noted for his research on recent megafaunal extinctions. His work focuses heavily on understanding why large mammals, such as mammoths and woolly rhinos, died out at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. He investigates both human hunting impacts and ancient disease transmission.

Ross MacPhee works as a curator in the Department of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His research has taken him on numerous field expeditions to remote locations, including the Arctic regions of Siberia and the Yukon, to dig up megafaunal remains. These expeditions help him gather crucial data on extinction timelines.

The hyperdisease hypothesis, proposed by Ross MacPhee, suggests that novel, highly virulent pathogens introduced by early humans and their domesticated animals wiped out vulnerable megafauna populations. This theory offers an alternative to the overkill hypothesis, which blames human hunting exclusively. MacPhee has attempted to extract ancient DNA from megafaunal remains to find evidence of these extinct pathogens.

Yes, the extinction of mammoths and other ice age megafauna is the central focus of MacPhee's paleontological career. He has spent decades traveling to the Siberian tundra to extract DNA from frozen mammoth carcasses. His goal is to discover if a specific virus or pathogen contributed to their sudden disappearance.