A novel research has found that rapid climate-warming events are majorly responsible for the extinction of wooly mammoths, short-faced bears and cave lions. Due to rise in temperatures, it became quite difficult for animals especially large one to survive in such hot conditions.

As per the researchers, the climate of the Late Pleistocene, about 60,000 to 12,000 years ago, increased temperatures between 7 and 29 degrees Fahrenheit. It became quite difficult for large animals to survive due to the effect on their habitats and their prey.

Study's lead researcher Alan Cooper, director for the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide in Australia, interstadials, are responsible for causing a lot of changes in rainfall and vegetation patterns across the world.

The researchers said that drop in temperature is not shown to be associated with animal extinctions, but the hot interstadial periods have been linked with massive die-offs. Another reason behind the extinction is ancient humans.

They used to disrupt the animals' environments; hunting made it even more difficult to megafauna to migrate to new areas and increase their populations. The latest study is the addition in the list of many studies carried out to know the reasons that had caused megafauna to wipe off during the Late Pleistocene.

In the latest study, the researchers have assessed DNA from dozens of megafaunal species and also have gone through more than 50,000 years of DNA records for extinction events. After that the researchers have compared the data on megafauna extinction with records of severe climate change.

"The high-resolution view we gained through this approach clearly showed a strong relationship between warming events and megafaunal extinctions", said Cooper.