remains, a feature that has revealed the sometimes shallow site of fossils. Distribution This mihirung has been found at sites in South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia, dating to the Pleistocene Epoch. Genyornis newtoni is the only species of dromornithid known to have existed during the Pleistocene. Extinction Two main theories propose a cause for megafauna extinction - human impact and changing climate. A study has been performed in which more than 700 Genyornis eggshell fragments were dated. Through this, it was determined that Genyornis declined and became extinct over a short period—too short for it to be plausibly explained by climate variability. The authors considered this to be a very good indication that the entire mass extinction event in Australia was due to human activity, rather than climate change. A 2015 study collected egg shell fragments of Genyornis from around 200 sites that show burn marks. Analysis of amino acids in the egg shells showed a thermal gradient consistent with the egg being placed on an ember fire. The egg shells were dated to between 53.9 and 43.4 thousand years BP, suggesting that humans were collecting and cooking Genyornis eggs in the thousands of years before their extinction. A later study, however, suggested that the eggs actually belonged to the giant malleefowl, a species of extinct megapode. A 2022 study examined the protein sequences of these unidentified eggshells and, through phylogenetic analysis, concluded that the lineage that produced these eggs diverged prior to the emergence of megapodes, supporting the previous implication that the eggs in question were produced by Genyornis. The authors also noted that the exploitation of Genyornis eggs appears to mirror that of earlier human usage of ostrich eggs throughout the Pleistocene in Northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Southwestern and Northern Asia, and present-day India and China, though they were unable to determine to what extent humans interacted with Genyornis. A 2021 study found that, if Genyornis eggs were being consumed at similar rates to the eggs of the emu and the Australian brushturkey, then Genyornis would have become extinct at far lower rates of total consumption than these still-extant birds. In May 2010, archaeologists announced the rediscovery of an Aboriginal rock art painting, possibly 40,000 years old, at the Nawarla Gabarnmung rock art site in the Northern Territory, that depicts two of the birds in detail. Late survival of Genyornis in temperate south