Researchers said the creatures could be filling the biological role once played by extinct animals like giant llamas.
In other words, it seems that large herbivores like the hippos in Colombia are playing a biological role similar to that of mammoths, giant sloths and giant wombats during the Late Pleistocene period about 116,000 to 12,000 years ago.that Escobar’s feral hippos have a diet and body size like those of the extinct giant llamas that used to live in the area, while they share a similar size and semiaquatic habitat with another extinct mammal called the notoungulates.
“So, while hippos don’t perfectly replace any one extinct species, they restore parts of important ecologies across several species,” said Rowan, a Darwin fellow in organismic and evolutionary biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.For example, Escobar’s hippos have been accused of polluting lakes with their feces. But study co-author Erick Lundgren pointed out tothat hippo poop “plays a keystone role in boosting fishery productivity” in Africa, so maybe it’s not all bad.
Rowan acknowledged that the new report may cause some controversy in biological circles, but hopes it encourages people to consider long-term effects when assessing the influence of invasive species on a particular ecosystem. “Hopefully it ignites a debate on entrenched views in conservation biology and encourages folks to ‘take the long view’ when thinking about biodiversity’s past, present, and future,” he told
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