We've got a bit of a track record for wiping out tortoises and turtles. This is probably because most of them happen to had had the misfortune of being both slow-moving and delicious. Meiolania was a big, prehistoric looking mofo that was originally thought to have died out from slightly more "natural" causes than the indiscriminate slaughter by homo sapiens. But, no, turns out we had a hand in this one too. Archaeologists have since discovered the remains of Meiolania bones in a 3,000 year old midden (a kind of ancient rubbish dump). Through analysis of the midden's strata, the archaeologists were able to determine that the giant turtles were history within 300 years of meeting humans. We can be sure that the turtles didn't get there by accident, as the only bones that were found were the leg bones and tiny shell fragments, indicating that they had been killed and butchered elsewhere, with the hunters only bringing the choicest cuts home with them. This is an impressive feat by the humans, considering this thing was basically a great, armoured dinosaur with horns on its head, spikes on its back and a great club on its tail. You've gotta be pretty sick of eating limpets and berries to take that on.
