Notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar may play a role in saving hippos from extinction, according to a new study.
It was in 1993 when the cocaine-selling kingpin passed away but he managed to keep four hippos in his ranch in Colombia.
Years later, the numbers have grown to around 90 and the hippos have already made their way into rivers.
Locals and scientists have viewed Escobar’s hippos as invasive animals but a new study revealed the cocaine kingpin’s hippos could save the species from extinction.
Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study compared ecological traits of introduced herbivores, such as hippos, to those of the past. Researchers discovered that such introductions restore numerous important traits that have already been lost for centuries.
Researchers claimed that 64% of the introduced herbivores are similar to extinct species than to local native species.
Study co-author Dr. John Rowan of University of Massachusetts Amherst said: “While we found that some introduced herbivores are perfect ecological matches for extinct ones, in others cases the introduced species represents a mix of traits seen in extinct species.
“For example, the feral hippos in South America are similar in diet and body size to extinct giant llamas, while a bizarre type of extinct mammal – a notoungulate – shares with hippos large size and semiaquatic habitats.
“So, while hippos don’t perfectly replace any one extinct species, they restore parts of important ecologies across several species.”
Study senior author Dr. Arian Wallach of University of Technology Sydney also added: “We usually think of nature as defined by the short period of time for which we have recorded history, but this is already long after strong and pervasive human influences.
“Broadening our perspective to include the more evolutionary relevant past lets us ask more nuanced questions about introduced species and how they affect the world.”
Researchers compared key ecological traits of herbivore species from before the Late Pleistocene extinctions to the present die.
“This allowed us to compare species that are not necessarily closely related to each other, but are similar in terms of how they affect ecosystems,” said lead author Erick Lundgren.
“By doing this, we could quantify the extent to which introduced species make the world more similar or dissimilar to the pre-extinction past. Amazingly they make the world more similar.”
Dr. Rowan continued: “Many people are concerned about feral horses and donkeys in the American south west, because they aren’t known from the continent in historic times.
“But this view overlooks the fact that horses had been present in North America for over 50 million years – all major milestones of their evolution, including their origin, takes place here.
“They only disappeared a few thousand years ago because of humans, meaning the North American ecosystems they have since been reintroduced to had co-evolved with horses for millions of years.”
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Replaced!