• Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    If I recall correctly camelids originally developed in the northern tundras (cold desert) before becoming more adapted to mountainous areas and hot deserts. I think there are fossils of camels in northern Canada.

  • GreyShuck@feddit.uk
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    6 months ago

    Animal species will expand into suitable habitat nearby, certainly. Whether they cease to exist in their original range is usually a question of the habitat there becoming unsuitable for some reason or another - maybe through climate change, or increased predation, or because that species has changed the original habitat itself - which is what you seem to be talking about. That is usually a question of overgrazing or similar, and typically will be a cyclical thing: population boom leads to overgrazing, which leads to migration and/or population crash due to starvation, which then allows the food source to recover and rinse and repeat.

    I am struggling to think of a particular animal species which has permanently changed the habitat of an area to the point where they couldn’t survive there - other than human. There are plenty of plants and microorganisms though. That is the whole basis of ecological succession.