Vegetation is often consumable by animals. In pre industrial America, the prairie supported millions of bison. The African grasslands support millions of Wildebeest. Yet northern New England for example, even though it is super green and covered in plant life, never has had the mammal biomass of the prairies, in the last couple thousand years, afaik. Why not? The woods in northern New England stretch endlessly for miles and miles and miles yet the forests lack plentiful numbers of large charismatic mammals. Why is this?
I’m aware moose and deer exist, and that there used to be caribou, but not in massive herds like the US midwestern plains.
In: 2
Evolution is not a magical force that optimises every environment. North America has never had a lot of different large mammals to fill the gaps. They’ve had various species of elk and bison for a long time, and when the grasslands close to the equator began to blossom with rising temperatures, these species had so so so much more to eat and absolutely exploded.
There simply never were any mammals in that place who would thrive on the kind of plants you’re talking about. And it was easy for the old elk and aurochs who were adapted to the ice age to adjust to the emerging grasslands, so there was never a reason for the animals to evolve in a different direction.
> The woods in northern New England stretch endlessly for miles and miles and miles
Yes, except that it’s rocky/craggy/mountainous forest, not flat grassland. What is flat is similarly mostly rocks. Look up how Hardscrabble changed its name to Farmingdale to attract new residents. You *cannot* compare New England to the Great Plains like that. Ausable Chasm is not the Grand Canyon of the east.
Latest Answers