Data from: Two major extinction events in the evolutionary history of turtles: one caused by a asteroid, the other by hominins

We live in a time of highly accelerated extinction, which has the potential to mirror past mass extinction events. However, the rarity of these events and the restructuring of diversity that they cause complicate direct comparisons between the current extinction crisis and earlier mass extinctions. Among animals, turtles (Testudinata) are one of few groups that have both a rich fossil record and a sufficiently ecological and functional role to enable meaningful comparisons between the end Cretaceous mass extinction (~66 Myr) and the ongoing extinction event. In this paper we analyze the fossil record of turtles and recover two peaks in extinction rate. The first event was at the Cretaceous-Paleogene transition (K-Pg), reflecting the overall patterns previously reported for many other taxa. The second major extinction event started in the Pliocene and continues until now. This peak only was detected on terrestrial turtles and started much earlier in Africa and Eurasia than elsewhere. This suggests a link to co-occurring hominins rather than having been caused by climate change.