Climate change, rather than human actions, probably drove the Balearic mountain goat (Myotragus balearicus) extinct.

Credit: ALINE NIEMAN/NATURALIS BIODIVERSITY CENTER

This small goat, unique to Spain's Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean, disappeared soon after humans arrived on the islands, about 5,000 years ago. Some researchers have proposed that disease or hunting by humans killed off the goats.

Frido Welker and Barbara Gravendeel of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, and their colleagues analysed plant DNA found in the goats' fossilized faeces (pictured). The results suggest that the goats were dependent on Buxus balearica, a local species of shrub. Further analysis indicated that the shrub's abundance on the islands declined sharply 4,000–5,000 years ago because of a drier climate. This is likely to have contributed greatly to the goats' extinction.

Quat. Res. http://doi.org/p6b (2013)