#megaherbivore — Public Fediverse posts

Megaherbivore (Zoology 🦥)

Megaherbivores are large herbivores that can exceed 1,000 kg in weight. The earliest herbivores to reach such sizes like the pareiasaurian reptiles and dinocephalian therapsids appeared in the Permian period. During most of the Mesozoic, the megaherbivore niche was largely dominated by dinosaurs up until their extinction during the Cretaceous–Paleogene e...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaherbivore

#Megaherbivore #Ecology #Zoology #Megafauna #AnimalSize #Extinction

Nature Doesn’t Care Where a #Species Is From.
A meta-analysis published in #Science showed no differences between #introduced and #native #megaherbivore impacts or evidence for stronger impacts of functionally #novel #species. Instead, large-bodied #herbivores and those with selective #diets had a stronger effect on #vegetation, suggesting a stronger role for species’ #traits than #origins in determining their impacts

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh2616

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/02/invasive-species-large-herbivores-plants/677325/